Are you here for World Domination?

When I was making plans for a second visit to Portland, Oregon I noticed a curious phenomenon. Every cheap hostel and hotel bed seemed to be booked out. One of the hostel staff told me that there's a big conference on the weekend I was in town. Yikes.

Two weeks later I arrived in the City of Roses and was on a walking tour of the local art galleries. One of the other tourists, a British lass named Tamsin, asked "So... are you here for World Domination?"

What? World domination? But I don't have a cat in my lap to stroke. And I'm not evil enough!

Portland, Oregon - Mt St Helens in the background.

Tamsin then explained that the conference that booked out all the beds in Portland was the World Domination Summit. It is meant to be a gathering of creative and not so creative types who aspire to an unconventional life in a conventional world.

Hearing my story of walking away from my previous life and funding a year-long trip around the world, she had thought that I may have been involved in the conference. The founder of the summit, the writer of the The Art of Non-Conformity blog, is closing in on an ambition to visit every country in the world - and teaches people how they too can "dominate the world" with their own "non-conformist" ambitions.

And of course, this fellow's home town is unorthodox Portland!

Portland, Oregon: Hawaiian food cart

Over that weekend as I walked around the city I realised conference attendees were everywhere. As I had lunch at a Hawaiian food cart, the people next to me were talking about their social plans over the summit. One was a charismatic Canadian woman, same age as me, who quit her corporate lawyer gig to travel around the world. She has now been on the road for years and funds the lifestyle with travel writing and speaking engagements. Naturally she was a speaker at the World Domination Summit.

It was heartening to hear of other folks around the world who had taken the chance to change up their lives. I knew almost everyone, at some stage of their lives, felt the way I did the end of last year - but to meet others who had actually taken action was gratifying. And in all places, Portland.