I'm so happy for you! I know that feeling of not being able to connect with people you once considered close friends. Where I live, while I still have a few friends whose company I still enjoy (who don't hate me for my anarchism) I have no one outside of my family that I really feel a spark with. At least not locally. And then I have some wonderful writer friends who I get along with smashingly, who tolerate my anarchism and are willing to listen to my ideas even if we don't agree. But I only get together with them about once a year. Most of my really good friends, the ones who really "get" me, are on the internet, I'd say.
And I want to (I WILL) leave this country and travel the world. I have some debt to pay off and some savings to supplement and some income streams to work on, but my long term goal is to be a professional itinerant by 2020. Wish me luck!
You can do it Leslie!!