On the road, it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day troubles while missing the bigger picture…until the trip is over.
When you travel for more than a few months at a stretch, it becomes a job. A job you don’t really like all the time. A job you start to complain about.
I should know – while skipping around the world for a year, I did a lot less skipping than I did budgeting, reading transportation timetables, and gesturing wildly to unsympathetic street vendors.
But eventually the journey ends, you return to your normal life, and something magical happens: you find yourself wanting that old job back, warts and all.
Here are ten things I couldn’t stand then, but am pining for now.
10. Talking to strangers
Forget asking for directions or buying something – most of the conversations I had were with random, curious folk on buses or in train stations wanting know all about me, where I came from, and why I was in their country.
I got really sick of answering the same questions over and over and often curbed the banter with my iPod earbuds. But now that I’m back in America, where nobody cares to hear anybody else’s sob story, I miss the feeling that others were fascinated by who I was and what I was up to.
Can you imagine the clerk at the supermarket cash register asking me how my day was, and actually expecting any other answer than “fine”? It was fun to be a celebrity.
9. Eating like crap
Eating in a new country is always exciting. You’re trying new things, discovering what you like and don’t like… except that sometimes you’re tired and hungry, in a hurry, and in no mood for experimentation.
So you eat crap. Being overly health-conscious normally, I had a really hard time with this. A box of cookies for lunch? A Snickers bar on the bus? A quick samosa? Another beer? Bring on the guilt.
Looking back now, I realize what a blessing it was. I got to eat crap all day, because I HAD TO! These days, I have to eat omega-3s and spend 5 hours a week at the gym. Not nearly as fun.
8. Low standards of hygiene
Extended travel does not bring out the beauty in people, and I was no exception. I took daily showers whenever possible, but sometimes all I was offered was a cold tap and a bucket, so let’s just say my primping routine was abandoned early on.
For a girl who started working on her outward presentation at a very young age, giving up on my beauty regimen was difficult. I felt dirty and ugly all the time, and I hid from incriminating camera lenses regularly.
Now I have access to hairdryers and eyelash curlers and high heels and 24 hours of hot water a day. Unfortunately, I’m also expected to use them.
Talk about a waste of time. Life would be a lot simpler if I could just be dirty and ugly again. It’s an infinitely easier way to go through life, and frees up so much more time for other activites, like talking to strangers and eating crap.
7. Power outages
A reality of life in developing countries is the lack of regular electricity. Without electricity, there is no television. There is no battery charging. There is no light, period.
It’s like camping indoors, which is frustrating and terribly inconvenient. Staring down a 12-hour train ride without a charged iPod was occasionally enough to bring me to my knees. In tears.
But not having electricity simplified my decision-making process in a big way. When the power went out, I grabbed a book. If it was already dark outside, I lit candles. Or maybe I just went to sleep. Why not? There was nothing I could do about it.
If the power went out right now, my day would be ruined. Ruined.
6. Haggling over pennies
Backpacking and budget travel usually go together because people who have the money usually opt for rolling luggage and first class carriages. But when you’re on a budget, it’s easy to go overboard constantly trying to get the best deal.
Once in a while I’d have to step back and remind myself that anything under a dollar was not worth getting worked up over.
But there’s something quite lovely about being quoted a price on bananas and demanding what you know is a fair price… and GETTING IT. In many countries, vendors will rip off travelers if they can, but will back down if called out.
Haggling can be a very rewarding experience. In California, a soy latte is $3.50 and I can either pay up or take a hike. Everything is way too expensive, and nobody cares.
5. Living out of a backpack
While traveling, I used to joke about having a backpack-burning bonfire upon my return to the States. I loathed that thing. It was heavy, hot on my back, always overstuffed, unforgiving to the natural shapes of souvenirs, and so on.
But it was my life. I was literally able to put my life on my shoulders and go wherever I wanted. Any split decision was manageable as long as I was wearing my backpack and my legs were working. I miss that freedom.
4. Boredom
We are taught from a very young age that feeling bored is bad. If you’re bored, you need to get out there and do something. Be productive. Be stressed and unhappy, even, but don’t just sit around being bored.
I was often bored while traveling. It happened on beaches, in museums, and during long, leisurely walks. I was uncomfortable not needing to rush around accomplishing tasks. If I didn’t have a deadline, or a small crisis, I felt bored.
Now I understand that what I thought was boredom was actually relaxation. I had so so much time to relax that it almost felt negative. Needless to say, I’d kill for a little more relaxation now.
3. Being around other travelers
Travelers are annoying as a whole. They’re preachy, self-righteous, and often stinky. They’ve also reached every corner of the earth and are impossible to avoid, so unless you’re in Antarctica, you’ll probably have to talk to some of them.
Don’t get me wrong, I met a lot of fun, interesting people abroad. I also met some idiots.
But all of us, even the idiots, had something in common: we were adventurers. No matter what kinds of losers we were in the real world, out there we shared a certain wanderlust that was impossible to pretend we weren’t proud of. A mutual admiration, if you will.
Which is not the sort of thing I share with my friends here at home, who love me but don’t understand why I spent a year being dirty and ugly by choice.
2. Homesickness
Once in a while, usually on a locally unrecognized American holiday, I’d feel a little glum and chalk it up to being homesick. I think it wasn’t so much homesickness as a desire for familiarity. Because now that I’m home, I don’t know what I was so homesick over.
The traffic? Obesity? Rampant overuse of plastic grocery bags? I realize now that I was just appreciating how lucky I was to have such a pampered, privileged life. I wish I felt that way more often, but I take it for granted when it’s all around me.
1. Not needing a car
I know what you’re thinking: Number one? Yep. See, I’ve had a car (and used it daily) since my sixteenth birthday. Having to rely on planes, trains, automobiles, rickshaws, camels, bicycles, wheelbarrows, and my own two feet was a humbling experience.
I never arrived on time. Sometimes I never actually arrived at all. I missed having my own set of wheels and the power of getting from Point A to Point B on my own terms.
I have my car back now, and it costs me $35 to fill up a ten-gallon tank. It needs its own insurance and it’s impossible to park in urban areas. I hate the darn thing. Where’s a rickshaw when I need one?
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28 Comments... join the discussion!
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You hooked me the moment you said that after a while travelling is like a job. That’s exactly how it felt to be by the time I was half way through my one year trip to Central and South Asia. I remember trying to explain it to my family on the phone – it was Boxing Day and I was in Peshawar, Pakistan. They didn’t get it.
Anyway, great article. You only lost me with the very last one. I hate driving (although I know how to do it) and didn’t miss having a car for a single second. I related to all the rest, perhaps most of all the point about boredom. I used to feel almost guilty for being bored, and drag myself from gallery to museum to hiking trail to…
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Another great post! Like Pico Iyer put it, “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves;
and we travel, next, to find ourselves… “.↵ -
Another thing you forgot was not having a mobile it feels so liberating.
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Why don’t you just travel again if you miss all this stuff? Stop complaining and do it. God.
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Very nice list …. a job but one you wished you never retired from!
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Great read, thanks for StumbleUpon for helping me find it:)
I love travel too, but it sounds like you are a little more adventurous than I – but I love what you are doing & I am looking forward to your forthcoming posts.
Take Care
Rich
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Great comments on learning from things we may not always enjoyed but that give us a better perspective on life in the end.
I have spent more than 6 years in Asia and South America in the last 12 years of my life. Which makes these comments funny because once upon a time all the things you expressed above happened to me. But now, after all this time, the haggling and boredom I initially disliked just seem like natural characteristics of life. Not to mention that I no longer have any ‘post traumatic symptoms’ of coming back to my homeland.
Here’s something I would offer since you are capitalizing on hardships that in the end are blessing. When I was eighteen I bicycled across America by myself – camping out and cooking alone. There were moments (lot’s of them!) where I hated being stuck out alone in the elements but there has never been anything to compare to the lessons I learned from that harsh and difficult journey alone. So, you don’t have to live in another culture to experience this change in reality, you just need to expose yourself by removing your security blanket.
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Hey, was using StumbleUpon and found your site. Pretty cool!
Much love from a fellow traveler,
Stephanie↵ -
Love it
, so truei wanna get back on the road…
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great article Sarah! i travel a lot too but i wish i did travel more. it opens us to a new world as you pointed out so accurately here. i came from a 3rd world country, and i totally went through these 10 things. i don’t miss it too much especially because i had moved to Canada for a better life. but it does mean a lot to me to be so blessed and provided for in every way. that i CANNOT take for granted.
it’s all about living simply so others can simply live. (gawadkaling.org)
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I know exactly what you mean. I really miss the road when I am stuck at home, there is nothing quite like the freedom!
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I’m still on the road, but notice that I miss some of these things as we go from one region to another. After five months in the Caucasus and Central Asia, I was so sick of answering the same questions over and over again (#10). When we got to China, there was still mutual curiosity, but no language to communicate in. While it was refreshing at first, I now miss the random conversations I used to have in the markets, buses and taxis of Central Asia.
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Nice post EXCEPT that you seem to think that the US is the BEST place on Earth to be and it is not. I am here just for the money but I dream of retiring somewhere else and came back to the States once in a while to load greens.
Cheers and enjoy the wine (not Californian please!)
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The list goes on! Being pulled by travel no matter how stingy we get when it comes to the budget and the planning. Who cares?! We love travel! It's all good!
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I miss travelling and miss it even more after reading that. I plan to travel this year again for sure – itchy feet! Thanks for the post. Good luck with your site
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I love this article! Really well-written! I'm in the process of moving right now and so I could definitely relate to the part about the backpack. I miss the time when I could carry all of my worldy possesions on my back, instead of having to hire a U-Haul. How in the World have I managed to collect so much useless, unimportant crap in the last year? I'd love to just sell it all…that would be so freeing.
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Love this! especially the part about the backpacking.
I backpacked around Europe for 6 weeks last summer with my friend. The backpacks killed us but i love how you pointed out the freedom it gives you, that is true.↵ -
A lot of things on this list, you can do at home. Don’t want to drive? Bike, carpool, take a bus, walk, skateboard, etc. Take small road trips to scratch the itchy foot. Go to farmer’s and flea markets to shop to haggle. Ditch the makeup. Turn off the electronics. Eat junk food and stop feeling guilty about it. Say hello to strangers and ask them about their day.
Stop wishing and do it.
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Why not just get yourself back on the road again for another year, that could be what your looking for……..or maybe not……!
It is not a good idea to talk to strangers in London, you might end up dead….!
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I really appreciated this article, having just finished up a big trip in West Africa and now being back in Europe, a couple things came to mind while reading this. I miss a lot of nuances about being there – like #10 for example, being in a place where everyone loves you and is curious about you and you are always the most popular person in the neighborhood, lol. This can be both a blessing and a curse though, because sometimes it can be very hard to find a moment of privacy when you really need one, or make an sly action that goes un-noticed, take a candid and natural photo of a street scene without people seeing you and posing, and people freaking out everytime you leave the house/hotel and go outside – these things can also get quite tiring. I suppose I learned what life would be like as a superstar.
After spending some time in the desert I must say that #9 is something that I definitely don’t miss at all – and the availability of a wide variety of local fruits and vegetables (even if they come from a supermarket and are covered with pesticides) is something that I always took for granted. Before going on this trip I used to like rice – but after eating it twice a day (usually combined with meat or dried fish) for way too long was overkill. At a certain point during my trip I started to have dreams about the red, ripe juicy tomatoes that I used to eat in Italy. And #8 is another good one – it was nice being able to walk around in tom-boy clothes that were ripped and stained with some holes here and there, with my hair uncombed and greasy, and with some dirt on my face and arms and not be made to feel ashamed or embarrassed.
And then #6 – sometimes you can feel a little bit ridiculous haggling over what would be the equivalent of .30 cents in your country….but it’s not the money that is important, it’s the principal that you have to haggle over. So what if you are white and “rich”!
Thanks for this post!
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Yeah, this was a fun article to read. It definitely reminded of life as a backpacker. I especially loved the comment about an overstuffed, hot, and heavy backpack. One of my greatest pleasures as a traveler is to laugh in my head at backpackers (the majority of them) who do not know how to pack. I always carry less than 20 lbs (about 9kg) in a small pack. When I was younger I used to carry a huge pack and hardly used some of the things I brought, if at all. Now I am carry-on and mobile. Plus, it makes hitchhiking and time crunches less stressful.
And I miss the tuk-tuks. Especially after a night of drinking and you get the fun drivers who know your state of mind and pull of wheelies and tight turns. Damn soybean daredevils!
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All of these are sooooo true…
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I have to put in a word for the southern US in regard to point 10 — there really are a a lot of places, still, where the people in the store will ask how you are and care about the answers — and get inot a long conversation about it….
really agree with #1 and #5.
thanks for a good and funny article.
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there’s travelling and living out of a backpack (ick), and there’s travelling properly. i could never travel and look like a bum.
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The one that hit home with me the most was #4 abt boredom. In a worldwith tweets, multiple cell phones, emails, & wifi everywhere, it is hard to find the relaxation or boredom.
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I’ve just come home from a year of traveling, and these points are just starting to hit me. All very true, and part of the reason I cant wait to pickup my backpack again to once again hit the dusty trail!
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On a recent trip to Mexico City, my travel partner and kept using the refrain, “Travel Sucks!” in reference to the numerous small travel maladies that one usually encounters on the road. Just small things, the door creaking in the hostel, a massive rainstorm that inundated Mexico City and nearly made us miss our flight, things like this.
Someone once told me that the fun of travel was 50% in the planning and 50% in the remembering it when you got back. A lot of truth in that.
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