“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Truthfully, I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. I feel a little lost, which I suppose is not surprising given my propensity to wander.
Sometimes I think to myself, “man, I’m so cool. I wanted to do something and now I’m out there freakin’ DOIN’ it! You only live once, baby! Live for the moment!” and more self-elevating crap like that.
These moments of elation are usually followed shortly thereafter by thoughts of, “seriously, WHAT am I doing? My money is dwindling. Aren’t I supposed to be engaged and popping out spawn by now?”
And then, “but, but I don’t really want spawn…”
Followed by “Yes, yes you do!”
The mental battle is usually kind of like that.
On the road, I’m usually surrounded by travelers. What I do by traveling long-term is not that impressive, surprising, or novel. Sure, I’m trying to travel for as long as I can. Of course, I’m going to go as long as my money allows me. Naturally, I’m trying to see as much of the world as possible. We’re all in that boat. Move on, there’s nothing special to see here.
It’s when I come back home or talk to friends who are stateside, living the life that I used to, that I start to realize I’ve taken a path unlike any of theirs. I start to realize that they have direction, and I don’t. They have a routine. It involves waking up at 7am, heading to work, breaking for lunch around noon, driving home, maybe heading to the gym, making dinner, watching TV, falling asleep, rinse, repeat. I did not value this when I lived it, but it’s funny how the older I get, the less adult I feel because I don’t have this routine anymore.
Because I’m supposed to by my late 20s, right?
People in the Western world say things like, “So, you just travel all of the time? Did you win the lottery or something?”
To which I say, “No, I write about getting to second base with ladyboys, beg people to buy stuff through my affiliate links, and every now and then, I do cool things in between haggling over dollars and trying not to look like a sweaty hot mess. Do you know how hard it is to look sexy with several layers of DEET, humidity, and sunscreen on? Very hard, my friend. Very hard.”
It’s like Southeast Asia is my parallel universe where laying on the sand, or an open-air bamboo hut opens my eyes to the reality that all I really need in life is food, shelter, and good people. Then I come back home and wonder if it’s completely unrealistic to wander without establishing something more lasting.
What I keep coming back to, and what I’ve just got to know is, is it possible to ever truly be happy? The grass is always greener somewhere I’m not, and that’s why I’ve resigned myself to wandering until I find a green enough patch to rest my tired feet on for a while.
But truth be told, the grass always browns, withers and dies right before my eyes. I suppose all I have to do is water it, but I never do.
Do you ever wonder, just a little bit, what it’s all for?
I sure do.
I can really connect with this post. That line about feeling less like an adult the older you get without a routine rings very close to home.
I think the thing to remember is to not intertwine yourself with other people’s, and especially not society’s, opinion on how you should live your life. Are you happy? Are you having fun? If you were to die tomorrow, would you be pleased with how things have turned out? I think you can answer “Yes” to these questions more so than most people living the routines that you described.
The grass is definitely always greener, but I think it’s better to find comfort in the dying patch of grass that you’re in and and tend to it until it’s something you can be proud of, even if it is a little brown. People from other patches won’t even notice the brown from their angle.
Regardless, I think you’ll be fine, however you choose to go about things in life. You’re too awesome of a person not to be!
Aww thanks Jason. If I died today I would know that at least I did exactly what I wanted to do for the past year, and I need to always remember that and be proud of it.
I think it’s possible, however I think expectations of what happiness is also have to be adjusted. You can’t be happy all the time, but I think you can be satisfied that you are happy most of the time. The reason why I’ve opted for the expat life is because it combines travel and living in a new place with stability. I love traveling, however I’ve grown to also equally value having a home, a group of friends and some roots.
I feel like coming from the U.S. it’s hard to imagine a life that’s not black and white. Corporate life vs. travel. Get engaged now vs. wind up single forever. Everyone’s getting married, having kids. Why am I not doing that? There are a lot of expectations of how things should be.
I also think the things that I didn’t like about the U.S. like corporate jobs can be okay internationally. I think people in the U.S. value money too much and work too hard, which leads them to be unhappy, however in Australia I think having a great work/life balance, 4-6 weeks holiday leave, an extremely high minimum wage, and a government that (most of the time) functions in the best interest of its people really goes a long way.
I may return to the U.S. one day however I think that what I’ve found here is pretty good. I get to pursue my passions and I have a greater feeling that I’m actually accomplishing something, rather than wasting away at a desk job in the U.S. because that was the only job I could find. I think it’s hard to find what you’re looking for, but when you do find it, everything will work out and the path will appear before you. Just keep going until you do 🙂
Alison recently posted…Inspirational Quotes
You know I’ve been wondering if maybe I was just so turned off to working for anyone again because the conditions at my last job were so bad, but Australia (and most other places) have much fairer standards and maybe it’s worth trying again.
Yeah I think I was in the same boat before I came to Australia. My last job in San Francisco was horrible, but so far in Australia I’ve only worked for great companies. The best part about what you’re doing by traveling is that you’re constantly meeting new and wonderful people. You are networking with the world! Just keep your ears and eyes open and I’m sure you will find something/someone that will lead to to an opportunity that you’re passionate about and truly enjoy 🙂
Alison recently posted…Inspirational Quotes
I’ve definitely thought about going back to Oz (you know this because I bug you with all kinds of questions!) but am also thinking Europe would be great too now that I’m here. Thanks for the encouragement 🙂
I, too, struggled with that question: is it possible to ever truly be happy? While I traveled, and then arriving in NYC to routine, work, etc. — I realized that being happy wasn’t my goal. It was being content. Being full. Living a life rich in experiences.
I realized that happy was based on circumstances — which sometimes were awesome. And sometimes just weren’t. But being content? That depended on me!
As for the age=you-should-have-certain-things? Meh.
Whatever — that is someone else’s stuff.
Aurora recently posted…Lessons from Trekking
How very Buddhist of you 🙂
When I returned from my year-long trip, I too faced the “Now what?” question. I was reading a lot about “quarter life crisis”.
Personally, I began to think hard about my priorities in life going forward. I decided that travel will continue to be a high priority. I also decided that kids are way too expensive to raise, which takes away from my higher priority of traveling, so I don’t want any. I like to move around and have flexibility so I don’t plan on buying a house. I do want to find a partner who will share the same thoughts. And I am not going to care what anyone else is doing. This is my life, I will shape it to my vision.
Decided for time being to take a job, work hard to save for future long-term travels, as well as put some money away for retirement (let time and interest do its thing). Also decided to retire in SE Asia because retiring in America is too expensive and imo, boring. (Did you read polls on how many people believe they’ll never get to retire?)
Anyway, I still have no clear idea now about when I want to leave for more travels but I know that when I do, I’ll have the resources for it. I stay inspired by reading blogs like “drive nacho drive”,”sprinter life” (unique story) and “moto-mikey”.
p/s: It sucks that we have to pretend like long-term travel and adventures are “nothing special” to the world but in our hearts, DAMNED RIGHT IT’S FUCKING SPECIAL!
Kenneth recently posted…Hello.
I’ve often thought about retiring abroad too. There’s something to be said about perpetually warm weather and places where your dollar goes way farther. Can’t wait to get back there 🙂
Wow, i could totally relate this to my life. People seemed so annoyed seeing us, traveler, spending our money and see the world. I keep asking myself whether i should go back to a 8 to 5 job to earn a stability and routinity.
But why bother when we could do so much more than that?
I certainly would not want to live in regrets. Travel provide a way better lifetime experience than working behind the desk could offer. And yeah, couldn’t agree more on you saying all we really need in life is food, shelter, and good people!
Fe recently posted…Road to Paradise..
Thanks Fe, maybe I need to get back to SE Asia to regain my perspective.
Yep, I feel you. I just returned to America after teaching abroad for the past 3-4 years, and now I’m feeling pretty lost and super young. Job searching, essentially broke after my post-teaching vacation in China, and kind of unsure what to do with myself now besides live with my boyfriend. So I spend an inordinate amount on time on my computer and blog. Haha. This sounds more depressing in print than it actually is. I’m positive, I assure you. It’s sad that I only associate the carefree lifestyle with more exotic locales, but there is something nice about knowing you have a definite place to live for the next year. And my life might not stack up to whatever my friends have now, or what I sometimes think I should have, but I wouldn’t change anything about what I’ve done. Except to maybe have done more of it.
Marielle recently posted…Why don’t you travel?
it’s super hard to return home after that long away, especially teaching. It’s such an easy life! Nothing wrong with writing to find what you really want out of life. It brings some pretty cool things your way!
I can relate to this. I’m in the midst of finding a balance between my love of travel and my love…. it’s hard, but worth it.
You speak a lot of truth in this post.
I have not traveled very long-term (no longer than 5 months at a time), but hope to once I’m done with my degree. Despite that, I have gone to quite a few places compared to other people I know and for anywhere between a month to five months at a time. As I travel, I think how amazing the travel lifestyle is, how easy it would be to just stay in Thailand forever and cancel my flight home.
I get home and feel sad for a while. I miss everything about travel when I’m not doing it. I resent the normality that is routine and “home”.
And then suddenly it’s been 6 months to a year of being in a routine again and I start to think the opposite: maybe I should save for a house, buy a decent car that doesn’t die on me every few months.
I find that I am so torn between wanting to travel and wanting to settle. I’ve also realized that I have no idea where I would want to settle, so maybe that’s why I continue to travel?
Who knows. But travel is always worth it and if needed you can also take a break from that lifestyle by “settling” into a place for a year or two.
Michelle recently posted…Sunday Snapshot: Lipstick Kisses
Isn’t it funny how we just adapt to where we are? I think I feel so weird in Western countries because I’m constantly seeing ads, hanging out with friends who talk about buying expensive things, and start to think, “I need that too,” only to realize once back in Asia that no, I don’t.
Do I ever! When I go home people are usually jealous of my unusual life whereas I sometimes find myself envying the normality their’s. Most of my friends have long-standing relationships and/or children and I worry that I might be missing my chance to have the same (not sure about kids either but would like a partner).
When I have those worries I think to myself, so what then? Are you going to settle down somewhere before you know if it’s truly the place you want to lay roots? Are you going to force a relationship because you’re worried you’ll miss out? And the idea of both those things, and the regrets it would cause, kills my fears – or at the very least is lets me know they’re unavoidable for now. I travel to find a way to have the life I want: stability AND adventure.
A friend of mine said it really well, ” we have our whole lives to be chained to children and husbands,” now is our time to be selfish and do things for ourselves, because in the grand scheme of things, you get one life and shouldn’t have any regrets, especially about not taking advantage of being young, healthy, and free.
http://youtu.be/2apMisb0ebw
translated lyrics
Lullaby
I walked near the banks of the river
in the cool breeze
of the last days of winter
and in the air you could hear an old song
and the dancing tide was running to the sea.
Sometimes travelers stop tired
and rest a little
with some strangers.
Who knows where you fall asleep tonight
and who knows how you’ll listen this song.
Maybe you’re rocking with the sound of a train,
chasing the gypsy boy
with his backpack under the violin
and if you’re lost
in some cold foreign land
I am sending you a lullaby
to feel you closer.
One day, led by safe stars
we will meet again
in some distant corner of the world,
in the slums, among the musicians and the stragglers
or on the trails where the fairies run.
And I pray to some God of travelers
you have two pennies in your pocket
to spend tonight
and someone in the bed
to warm away winter
and a white angel
sitting at your window.
love you Kris 🙂
Love you Francesco! Pretty song 🙂
Hi Kristin,
I feel the same (I’m 31), and it seems we ALL do, so there’s comfort in that.
Most recently I went to an amusement park with two friends in their early-mid 20’s. I was having a blast, until I looked around and saw most people around me were kids, teens, or in their early 20’s with a group of friends. If anyone was my age, they were there as a family, with children of their own, and I instantly felt like a weirdo – what’s this 30 something girl doing hanging out at an amusement park as if she’s still a kid – grow up already!! But is it me who is wrong, or the 30 somethings that aren’t allowing themselves the joys of being a kid again, or who grew up too fast and are now bogged down by kids and jobs and don’t have the time or resources for a jaunt at the amusement park?
I forever go in circles enjoying my life of freedom and travel and then feeling like Peter Pan, the one who never wants to grow up, and then wonder if I should seek therapy. lol! But this life is too much fun to stop. I’m rolling along, taking things a day at a time, and doing my best not to question too much. When I get sad, or begin questioning, I acknowledge it, journal it, and keep going.
Perhaps you will find solace in Osho, the spiritual guru I seek these days for comfort and answers to my questions and soul searching. His teachings are free online at Osho.com.
Happy travels and again, thanks for finding me on twitter and connecting!
Wendy
I do the circles as well! I feel awesome sometimes and not so awesome other times that I’m living such an alternative lifestyle. You’re right though, just because convention tells us to do something doesn’t mean we should.
Traveled, worked and lived abroad for 1/2 a decade. All started in Bangkok, pretty much the exact route(s) you have taken, minus Italy and Ireland, add in Far East Asia and some of the Middle East. I am about 10 years older than you, did all this between my early to late 20’s. ENJOY.EVERY.SECOND.YOU.CAN! 🙂
These memories/ experiences will never leave you, it will stay with you forever, not in a bad way but in a way is like a splinter in your mind. Upon your return, a week will not pass that you will not think about: That tuk-tuk ride in BKK, that amazing beach on Samui or Ko Pangyan, the kids in Bukit Lawang – how happy they were with nothing, how Lake Toba looks like something out of Austria, etc, etc.
I am in a professional career now and still cannot shake the wanderlust. I have friends who are still out there, 10 years now, working of course, meet them when they are back here in Canada. The stories, OH the stories!
This kind of experience is a blessing and a curse, it never leaves you and it never leaves you alone. I don’t regret a second of it! 🙂
Safe Travel
MJ
Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment, Martyn. You said it so well – these things will never leave me and when I look back at all of the pictures and memories I’m so damn grateful.
I’ve been running around living a very irresponsible lifestyle since about 2009. I saw a documentary on Croatia one day and something in me snapped and I awoke to see three walls of a grey cube in which I’d spent 15 years so I got up and quit to start my new life. The early times were absolutely euphoric and freeing. But things slowly started to change
I just got back from three months in Europe and it was different than all my past trips. This trip I couldn’t force myself to stay in hostels. I was tired of saying goodbye to all the new wonderful people I always tend to meet. I just wanted to spend time with the friends I had there in Europe and that’s just what I did. The only problem was the down time in between visits. It turned to bone crushing loneliness and had some of the lowest lows yet the times with friends were the highest of highs. This was exhausting. I started making mistakes and forgetting things and before you know it, I’d spent more than my past two or three trips put together. As much as I didn’t want to meet a lot of new people on this trip, it was inevitable as I met the friends of my friends and their families. More people to say goodbye to
I’m now trapped in some weird limbo that no matter where I am, whether it be stateside or overseas, Im saying goodbye. It’s almost as if I’m a ghost in both worlds. Missing out on things half the time on the other side of the world. Almost a parallel world. I feel as if I have died and that I am living only half a life now no matter where I am. Like a short person at a concert. It is one of the most unexpected side effects I can ever imagine happening and now I really don’t know what to do. The culture shock of coming home and switching languages every so often is taking its toll on me. I don’t like what I see here in the states. The lifestyle sickens me most of the time and priorities are so out of whack, it’s just toxic. It’s easy to fall back into routines that, although comfortable, are actually quite negative and wasteful. I just wonder which side of the tug of war will win but for the time being, Im just tired of saying goodbye.
I think it’s really hard for anyone who is used to roaming to feel at home in any one place again. I never have after leaving university in 2007 and moving abroad. It’s been a challenge ever since. I guess the positive is that we both have the courage to do something about it. People back home are constantly saying, “I wish I could do what you do,” not realizing that they absolutely CAN. There’s always an upside and a downside but most of the time, I’m happy with my choice. I say goodbye a lot but that’s only because I’m always meeting such amazing people.
Chin up. What’s meant to be will be.
Travelling for a year, back for a year, expat for a couple years, back for a few months, travelling a year, etc. This suddenly adds up to me being almost thirty with few discernible skills to offer the world. I do know how to walk around streets enjoying jarring architectural styles, the smell of urine pervading the noodle soup aroma and the sound of the goat bleeting, tied to the post just close enough to the few sprigs of grass. Really, I like that. 😉
Hahaha…
Good luck with your travels, finding a home or not
This is a really fantastic post, I never feel more alive than when I’m traveling and in transit. Experiencing the world around me and all the life has to offer. And at the same time when I come home and everyone asks me “what’s next?!” I feel stuck I feel like I don’t have a plan. I fall right back into the pressures of society. Travel makes me happy and I know it makes you happy too! Don’t ever doubt your decisions, fantastic post !!!
Xx – Ashley
Ashley recently posted…Cambridge – The Travel Guide
Thanks so much, Ashley! It’s hard to let go of societal pressures but I know in the end I’m on the right path for me and it seems like you are too.
I enjoyed your post very much. It reminds me in many ways of thoughts I had when I was in my twenties and rambling around a lot. (I’m in my fifties now.) My first extended experience outside the US (born and raised in the Midwest) was right our of college in 1982, teaching English to unaccompanied minors (mostly Khmer) in a refugee camp in central Thailand. My students were only a few years younger than me and of course had some pretty horrific stories to tell about how they got to where they were. One of the lessons I learned from them is that if you have food, shelter and people around you who care, you really don’t *need* much else in life.
I lived in a small town near the camp in a little development that housed a lot of the people, ex-pats and Thais, with whom I worked. The job was mostly a Monday-Friday thing so I went on a lot of two-and-three day trips around Thailand, sometimes on my own, sometimes with friends. I got to see a lot of the country that way, often in the company of Thai friends who got doors opened that might have remained closed otherwise. (I stayed on Koh Samet when all the buildings were bamboo and thatch. No one knew about the place back then.) When my six months there were up (I got the position through my university) I thought very hard about getting a job so I could stay in Thailand, travel around SEA, maybe go as far as Afghanistan, but I really wanted to go back home for a while. I had been away for about eighteen months at that point and missed home and family. But I was very torn. The “travel bug” had bitten me hard.
So three years later I was studying in Taiwan and then travelling around the PRC, all solo and really liking it a lot. But I wanted to finish my MA in East Asian history so after seven months of that I went back to the Midwest. Within a few weeks of my return I met the woman I eventually married.
We spent ten years, before and after marriage, working, yes, but travelling a lot too. Mexico, Guatemala and Belize several times, all over the western US (we spent six weeks one summer living out of the back of our pick-up.) Had kids twenty years ago and have gone on a lot of trips around and outside the US with them.
Sorry for the rambling comment, but I just wanted to say that you should enjoy the huge freedom you have now, and that you can still have the significant other and kids some day. And enjoy travels with them. You won’t be able to just pick up and go whenever and wherever you please as you can now living out of a backpack. But if you are willing to make a few compromises– and meet the right person as I surely did!– you can have a lot of “both worlds”
Thanks for that. I am definitely enjoying my present freedom but still aware that finding a partner is important to me and will eventually be a priority.
If you keep traveling, only stay a little longer in each place, you might find a partner who wants to travel with you. But if not … I don’t in any way regret staying put with my lovely wife and raising two sons. But now that she’s “graduated” and they’re grown, my home is where ever I set down the backpack. At least that’s what I’m expecting. Possible I won’t like it and will make roots again. But I doubt it.
I really relate to this post- not even as a traveler, but as an artist. I write spoken word poetry and essays, and I rap and I dance. I want to make a career out of it. When I spend time with my musician friends, they are all totally supportive and inspiring. However, when I’m with my fellow 22-year-old friends who all just graduated from college and have internships or office jobs, who are applying to grad school, etc., or even when I just talk to other normal people, they think it’s cool that I perform poetry as “a hobby.” Then they wonder when I’m going back to college to finish my English degree. Then they wonder why I don’t try finding a job doing copywriting, or working in an editor’s office. People who choose the “safe” path in life- maybe they really do think that artists like me and travelers like you are deranged. Maybe they’re a little (or a lot) jealous that we lead more passionate, exciting lives (although that passion and excitement comes with a lot of fear and relying on pure faith that I won’t end up homeless!). Maybe they love mechanical engineering, and that’s great that they hit the jackpot with their passion also being a lucrative and sensible career. Sometimes, I go into fear mode that everyone else is right and I should be living my life more like them in order to please them, or in order to avoid homelessness. Then I spend my free time applying for technical writing jobs or looking up when I can apply to school. And my art suffers, and my soul suffers! At the end of the day, you can’t please everyone, it’s your life to live, and you have to live it the way that you want to! When you’re lying on your deathbed, what will you regret the most?
Alise recently posted…Ataturk
Perfectly said, Alise. I feel the same way and still have to sometimes insist to people that yes, what I’m doing is actually a job and like anything entrepreneurial, it won’t pay off like crazy at first. It needs time to develop. I really like this comic for that topic http://zenpencils.com/comic/160-edgar-albert-guest-it-couldnt-be-done/
As a solo RV traveler within the US for the past two years I have had the same questions about what am I doing with my life? At 59 I bought an RV, sold my stuff and eventually sold my condo to travel the US living full time in a small van motorhome. After a less than a year, and still loving this nomadic life, I did begin to question what the purpose was. Was my happiness to be attained in so, seemingly, serendipitous a way?
A dear friend gave me the operative word that has sustained me and continues to. He said you are on a path of discovery. That word, discovery, really struck me. It opened up reality to me, the awareness that I am following my desires and that life is given to me in a mysterious way. It’s a road to travel, a journey to make. And on that journey my work is to follow my desires and discover how they are being fulfilled. I trust in the giver of each moment and miracles continue to occur.
That doesn’t mean there are no difficulties, but fear is not the operative sentiment. Love and joy are. Discovering beauty and meeting people are what draw me down the road. Trusting that any difficulties are for me and not against me is the choice I make because I believe that life is good and positive. My experience tells me so.
In my heart of hearts I have wanted a companion for my late years of life and a dear one has been given to me. I have been a single mom most of my adult life, ran a business, worked for a corporation and now travel, write for my website and explore new activities to pursue.
My growth in awareness are key to my happiness and my heart follows the presence of a mystery that guides me, through the people I meet and the beauty I discover in them and in the natural world. This gives me peace that I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing. And I am changed by all of it. My growth toward my happiness produces a change in me that I embrace.
I think you have spoken to this same experience in your musings. Trust these experiences and keep your eyes open to your life on the road. The path is a good one and if you take the time to judge it (and I find good and true friends a huge help in this regard) you will continue to be richly rewarded in many ways. I look forward to following your adventures.
Your comment is absolutely beautiful. Thanks so much for such a thoughtful response to something I posted in a time of questioning. I especially love, “I trust in the giver of each moment and miracles continue to occur.” So perfectly said.
I love the idea of traveling the US in an RV! I also appreciate so much how brave someone must be to be a single working mother. Mine is as well and every day, I wonder how she can do something that I perceive as so difficult. Kudos and keep on exploring!
I know how you feel. I spent several years traveling in my mid to late 20’s. I would work seasonal jobs in amazing places in the US and travel for the 2 months in between (so, 4 months total every year). Then I decided that I was supposed to stop– thank you societal pressures! I went to grad school and got a jobbie job. Then I decided to plunge into traveling again. The jobbie job world is not for me. I saved and saved until I hit my goal. I fly to Bangkok in a month and plan to keep going until… who knows.
Now I’m remembering the extremes of traveling. Sometimes exhilarating, sometimes boring. Sometimes feeling so connected, sometimes feeling so alone. I’m actually nervous! (But in a wonderful way.) I’m about to cannonball into the deep end again. Whoa
Definitely agree. It’s so extreme but I miss those extremes and the chaos when I don’t have it.
It looks like you wrote this post a couple of years ago. How do you feel now, another 2 years down the road? Any answers? More questions? I’m 57, 6 months into my around the world journey, and have no thoughts of 9-5 jobs & having kids, been there, done that, but I do worry about dwindling finances, how to make this lifestyle last longer & what it’s all about. But no regrets, I’m loving it!
Hi Lynn, I saw your comment on the Facebook chain and I think it’s so cool that you’re out there traveling and encouraging others like yourself to do the same. I reposted this today because I do still have these thoughts, even two years after writing it. I guess I haven’t figured it out completely. I did develop income streams and am working on others. I’d suggest giving some thought to what you enjoy doing and what you’re good at, and can that be a marketable skill online? So many people are creatively finding ways to live and work on the road and there’s no reason why you can’t do the same. It just takes a lightbulb moment sometimes! Best of luck.
Ahhhhhh the law of attraction is a funny thing you see… I woke up this morning with incredible anxiety and doubt about my life and travel decisions and was totally in my head about what I am going to do with my future (I’m 31 years old and currently traveling in Italy). And then your article popped up in my newsfeed and I’m like YEEEEEEEEEA I’M NOT ALONE! 🙂 I’ve been traveling for 13 months and much of your feelings reflect my own. It’s usually Facebook and photos of my friends kids, engagements, and weddings that gets me thinking that I’m absolutely NUTSO to be living out of a backpack with no solid future plans. I consistently get asked, “When are you going back to the states? Can you go back to your job?” — to which all I can honestly say is I DON’T KNOW. I’m coming to find out that that is the blessing and the curse of long term travel 🙂 It’s a strange addiction we are all afflicted with… this “travel bug”. I accepted the fact that I will be infected for life…. but I’m still coming to terms with choosing a MUCH different path than the 99% of people I know! Great article girl – I appreciate your thoughts!!! Happy traveling. P.S. I don’t know what I’m doing EITHER! 😉
Hi Lindsay, I often second guess posting articles like this because I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the chance to live a life that many people around the world have no hope of ever doing, simply because of where they were born. But every time I do, others who feel the same way connect with me and it makes me realize that there are many of us in this position who are living in a society that we don’t fit into. We don’t belong in boxes. It’s never easy to go against the norm and yes, the bewilderment of your friends and family back home regarding your life choices is most definitely a side effect of a traveling lifestyle. I guess it’ll always be there!
I think this is one of my favorite posts of yours… and I’ve been blog stalking you for awhile. 😉 Just kidding. Kind of.
Awesome Sarah. I haven’t read it in a while and you reminded me of it 🙂
Great post! I feel the same way, stoked on that sunrise when camping on the beaches of New South Wales and then like Ah Crap I’m in no routine at all. I’d also be unhappy in a stable routine, like friends back home anyway.
Happiness is an ongoing journey, you can’t be happy all the time! I’m happy to be travelling and see where that patch of green grass may be for me.
Lots of love and support from a fellow wanderer 🙂
I’m totally with you that it can’t be awesome all the time, and the ups and downs are just part of life. Making peace with that is definitely essential. I agree with the routine as well. A 9-5 just doesn’t suit me and I’m OK with that!