For the past 12 years, I have been travelling the world. I started when I was 21 and I am now 33. I have visited many beautiful countries across Southeast Asia, South, Central and North America, and Europe as well as spent time in Australia and New Zealand. I have embraced different cultures, met amazing people, laughed, cried, faced my fears and learnt new skills.
To give you some background, after graduating from University with a degree in Psychology, I was not ready to start looking for work and build a career, and a friend suggested I come to Southeast Asia to backpack with her for 6 months. I jumped at the chance and spent 6 months working an office job to save for my travels. Whilst in Southeast Asia I caught the ‘travelling bug’ and this would be the beginning of 12 years of travelling the world, where I would stay anywhere between 6 months to 2 years in any given country, come back to the UK when I ran out of money, to save up and go again!
Without sounding cliche, I don’t think I would be the person I am today had I not travelled the world. I am more cultured, tolerant, grateful and open to new experiences and possibilities. I am less judgmental, have pushed myself out of my comfort zone many times, and have grown spiritually and mentally.
Travelling the world is truly an invaluable experience and people will often tell you all the amazing stories about their long-term travels, and as they should, I am sure there are plenty of them, however, no one talks about the downsides of travelling the world long term and what negative impacts this can have on some of us! I say ‘some’ because everyone is different!
This post is no way meant to put anyone off, but when you plan to travel long term, especially when you are young, it’s important to know adjusting back to ‘normal’ life when you are ready to come home and settle down may come with its challenges!
I have no savings
The whole purpose of my being in the UK was to work any job I could find and save for my next backpacking trip abroad. I am sure I don’t have to tell you that travelling is expensive, especially in countries where your money doesn’t stretch as far and working isn’t always an option because of visas and such.
if you usually just live payday to payday like me, then it’s unlike you will be unable to save to travel as well as save for other things such as a mortgage.
Now being back in the UK and planning to travel long term again, I am finding it quite unsettling that I don’t have so much as an emergency fund that I could dip into when needs must!
I have not built a career
Travelling the world meant that I have not been able to build a career and climb the career ladder like most of my peers, who are all well-established in their work now.
Having graduated from university with a degree in Psychology apart of me feels that the qualification is useless now, at it has been 12 years since I graduated and I have not built up any work experience to go alongside it.
Although I do have plenty of work experience, it’s all unrelated to my degree and it wouldn’t help me to pursue a career in what I plan to do now I am settling in the UK. The work I have done has been ‘low skilled’ that were easy to get so I could save up for the next backpacking trip, which at the time of course served
I have an idea of what I want to do now and I am working on building a successful career myself as it is never too late, however, I know that I will need to start from the bottom and work my way up!
Friends move on!
Sadly, I have lost friends whilst travelling the world, mainly because I spent little time in the UK to sustain my friendships. Different time zones and being on the move quite a bit means that it gets harder to keep in touch with your loved ones, and as time passes you can lose touch and the connection you had with people you were once very close with.
Aside from this, even the friends that I did manage to keep a bond with were also living their lives whilst I travelled. They were meeting milestones and progressing and whilst I am happy for all their achievements and growth, it can sometimes be difficult to adapt to their new way of life when you are reunited, and you may find that you don’t have as much in common anymore and things are not the same! It also sucks that you want there to witness their achievements!
As you meet lots of people when travelling, you say a lot of goodbyes and this can be difficult when you have built strong bonds with people and constantly have to say goodbye to them, not knowing if or when you see them again.
My friends are ‘scattered’ everywhere
I always get envious of people who have a set of friends that they are close with and that hang out regularly. I often fantasize about having a ‘girl squad’ that I can have spontaneous fun with, or nip around for cake, tea and a catch-up on the way home from work.
Whilst I made plenty of friends travelling, some of which will be friends for life, they are placed all over. The British friends I met are all over the country, from the south to the far North and this means I am constantly travelling to meet up with people and this gets exhausting.
My friends abroad mean I don’t get to see them often, and as much as we get creative with keeping our bond and connection, not being able to see them much sucks!
I spent a lot of time thinking I was behind in Life
When I came home earlier this year and decided I wasn’t going to travel long-term anymore, I had to begin to think about what I wanted to do with my life and reestablish new goals and a new purpose for myself.
In a way, I felt like I was starting all over again and it was quite overwhelming. Admittedly, I spent a lot of time comparing myself to others. Whilst I was travelling, friends had bought houses, climbed the career ladder and were doing well financially, some had even gotten married and started their own families.
Travelling had prevented me from reaching those milestones and although it was my choice, I couldn’t help but feel I was ‘behind’ and felt a lot of pressure to try and play catch up.
I haven’t been in a serious relationship
Travelling meant that my romantic relationships suffered as it’s difficult to get involved in anything serious when you are on the move a lot.
Of course, I have met guys whom I have been involved with romantically while travelling, but this is usually short-lived, as it difficult to commit to someone when at some point we know we will end up going our separate ways!
The same goes for guy’s I have met whilst I have been at home in the UK, guys I dated seem to avoid getting attached because I never kept a secret about my plans to travel again and I can’t blame them, who wants to fall in love with someone for them to up and leave you as soon as they have saved up enough money to leave?
I don’t know what it feels like to be in a committed relationship, have someone to come to at the end of a long day, someone to share my worries and fears, and plan a future with and people often don’t believe it when I tell them I have never had one, however, I am completely open to finding love and settling down and have never thought it wouldn’t be a possibility for me, it just didn’t suit my lifestyle at the time!
You get travel blues
I bet you can relate to having holiday blues, coming back to live our normal lives feels depressing compared to the trip we just had whereby the only thing we had to think about was what time we were going to have our next cocktail. Travel blues is the same but a little more intense and it takes a lot longer to adjust back to the life you left behind you left.
Despite the challenges I have faced and am still facing since leaving my long-term travel days behind me and trying to settle in the UK again, I don’t regret a single thing about the way I have chosen to live my life up until now. Yes, I might not have everything figured out right now but I am confident I will get there and that a bright future awaits me.
if it’s one thing that travelling the world taught me, it’s to let go of societal expectations and doing things how and when you want to do it!
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