To many people, the question “Is it possible to travel for too long?” seems ridiculous. That’s almost certainly because the average person has never travelled more than a few weeks consecutively. Maybe a few might go for a month or two during a summer vacation. Most readers will have only enough travel time to land in a city, dash around for a week, try another one for the same amount of time before flying home. For these people, desperate to squeeze out every last experience during their two week vacation benders, the question seems preposterous.
But it’s true. You can travel too long.
We have been on the road now for almost 10 months. That’s not a short amount of time. It’s not as long as a lot of the travelers we read about but it’s a long time nonetheless. And to be completely honest, our traveling has changed a lot recently. While we used to be over the moon by landing in a new city and exploring its various sites and sounds, these days, we’re much more reserved. Not quite ‘bored” but certainly not as thrilled as we used to be.
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The mechanics of travel – booking, moving, packing, meeting, changing, washing, eating – wear you down. What’s worse, previous experiences will spoil you. Want to see the beach? Probably not as beautiful as Byron Bay so I’ll pass. How about a fancy meal? I just finished a week in Rome and you simply can’t compete with the food there. How about a hike out to see some ruins? Are they as good as the Wats in Thailand or Machu Pichu in Peru cause I’ve seen all of those.
I’m not sure when exactly it hit us but I’ve noticed that our guilt around ‘missing out’ on things has dropped off considerably. People will ask us if you saw X or tried out Y and we’ll just shrug and say, “No, didn’t get there” without much guilt at all. When we started, we were ashamed if we passed by some hot spot and didn’t make a go of it. Now, we just let it roll off our backs.
Which might be a good thing. Honestly, you can’t do everything without going crazy. But I think the balance may be starting to tip too far. We may be missing out on things that we shouldn’t because, well, we’ve seen so much. We might actually be reaching the point where our money would be better saved up and used on another trip down the road.
I don’t personally regret the money we are spending these days and actually enjoy the pace we have now better than when we started. But part of me wonders if we haven’t been gone just a little too long.
What about you? Have you ever travelled for too long? Let us know in the comments!
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We’re a married couple who quit our jobs to seek out new adventures and vistas on a round-the-world trip. We love meeting new people and sharing experiences and travel stories from our life on the road.
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It’s definitely possible! It’s hard to ever have a real day off when you’re traveling because, personally, I always think “I might never be here again, I can’t stay inside today and do nothing!”. And that pace gets exhausting after a while. That said, when I started to worry less about “missing out”, it was kind of a positive thing. I stopped thinking about what everyone else was doing, and started only doing the things that truly appealed to me.
Jessica,
Thanks for the comment. We have certainly “missed out” on a few places. Sometimes we just hang out in a cafe and write for an afternoon, maybe not even for the blog, just to stop and hang out.
We do worry about the “we aren’t going to be back here” thoughts but then again, who knew I would be there in the first place!
Sadly we haven’t been on the road long and I have a lot of these feelings, mostly those that are driven by money; if it’s conveniently cheap then it sounds good, but if it’s expensive well “I am sure it doesn’t compare to xyz”. A friend sent me this recently which is a funny thought to consider about long term travel – http://www.reddit.com/r/IWantOut/comments/zykw2/getting_out_and_what_it_means_to_me/c68uit9
Dustin,
Thanks for the comment. Read the link. Lucky for us, we didn’t leave out of frustration or any of that. We loved our old jobs actually. But we wanted to see more. Now that we’ve been gone so long, the hunger isn’t as sharp. It’s still there but we go slower and with less hunger. Lucky for us, the budget hasn’t been tough. Are you guys having to adjust re: budget?
This was a great post – very honest. And, I have to say that it’s one of my biggest fears about this trip. We’ve technically begun our year of travel, but are still in the US, leaving for India in a few weeks and will be in Asia for a year. i remember when I visited Scotland several years ago and we visited a zillion (exaggeration?) castle ruins in a matter of 10 days or so. I threw a fit when my husband wanted to see another one. I just didn’t care about that castle. And I’m worried I’ll reach that point with everything. Still, it’s a good reminder to manage your pace of travel even at the beginning when things are super exciting. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comment. I have also noted that my energy comes and goes in waves. When we left Asia for Australia, I was dead to the world emotionally. The energy of Thailand left me and the familiarity of western life invaded and deflated me. I picked up in Italy with all the art and then really got going again in Africa. But in comes and goes so remember, don’t panic and take your time.