“Travel is only glamorous in retrospect” – P. Theroux
Do not do it. In over five years of full time travel I have yet to meet anyone else who is doing what I am living.
It is not the glamorous experience that photos in travel blogs suggest, and it is not a really, really long vacation. It is an adventure to be sure, it is a lot of work, it is a lot of solo time, and it is a commitment to change just about everything that most of us have been advised and trained to pursue.
I näively thought that full time travel would make me a more interesting person to other people. I have been roundly educated that this is not the case. When asked what I ‘do’, and I reply that ‘I travel the world full time’, I was rather surprised that virtually no one asked me a single question about the world. Of course it is my vanity at play here, but I truly suspect that if I replied ‘well, I just went to Michael’s Craft Store’ there would be a question. So make sure that you choose travel to satisfy only yourself.
It feels perfect for me right now, but I never say “you should do this” to anyone I know or meet. The perfectly admirable inertia – a nice neighbourhood, familiarity, relationships, the cherished stuff, a beautiful garden, a fine social network, all conspire to keep us at home, and the absence of those contacts and routines and ritual and predictability have demonstrably been devastating to people.
Full time travel is the exact opposite of the American Dream. It features no house, no car, no hosting dinner parties, no collections of interesting things or hobby workshop; no tasteful and expressive interior or exterior design; no single track bike or closet of edgy clothing; no pets or spectacular audio system; no regular Sunday diner get together; no kitchen gadgets. Forget the book club (golf club, poker group, knitting group, fight club…).
In the movies people opt to head out on the road at a significant point of life inflection. Job loss. Divorce. Family tragedy. Brush with death. I am torn between thinking that this is precisely the right, or exactly the wrong time to launch. I suppose, without any sort of data to support the notion, that a hugely impactful life event is really a strong push out of inertia and a strong motivation for self-assessment, and if, in some sense, the decks have been cleared by fate, then perhaps consider the furnishings that you would want on your personal ship of fools.
When surveying the landscape of choices, full time travel can be many things. The vocabulary is expanding: Location Independent, Nomad, Digital Nomad, Slowmad, Global Citizen, World Explorer. The actual daily life choices range from ‘working in a different place’, to pet sitting, dating in Ibiza, living in Colombia, surfing from festival to festival, volunteering in all it’s glorious iterations. I suggest that it is not important to determine ahead of time what your expected ultimate path or mode will be. Rather, I believe that those decisions will self select if you choose to launch. If you make the leap your life will evolve into a new pattern and you will find a new comfort in a new endeavour or passion.
There is a safety net. I had no way to predict if this life choice would be right for me. I occasionally run through scenarios involving boredom, loneliness, weariness, absence of purpose. Lack of funds. Truth is, if it does not give great joy, and the personal world before this grand experiment was conducted appears more attractive, then rewind. Your ex boyfriend may not take you back, nor will the mediocre previous employer. But, in my estimation, I will be the Walmart greeter with the most mysterious smile. The one that signals ”as a matter of fact I have seen it all, and done everything”.
Consider long and hard about what you will shed and leave behind. Think about the things that will be lost in the fire. Balance that against the potential of the unknown.