Travel is not an elite activity …
“Must be nice”
“You’re always abroad, do you work!?’
“I’d love to do that… so jealous”
If you travel for any significant period of time during the year, you’ve probably heard these comments and others. If you’re evolved, you shrug it off. I can do that sometimes.
Recently however, it infuriates me. I’m not doing anything special. Nothing you couldn’t do yourself!
I don’t travel ‘for the gram’ anymore. Ego statistics about how many places I’ve traveled to, how many cities I’ve been to and how many air miles I’ve accrued seem cringeworthy to me now.
Why I travel
Travel is good for my mental health.
Whenever I travel, my family and friends comment on how much I smile in my video calls, how glowing my skin is and how chill I seem.
I’ll leave the potential reasons for that state of being for another article but let’s just say I’ve figured out that travel is my happy place.
Tony Robbins says people need a certain level of certainty and a certain level of uncertainty in their lives in order to feel contented.
Not knowing where I will sleep that night or where my next meal will come from gives me anxiety → too much uncertainty.
Not knowing what city I will be in 3 months from now, what kind of apartment I’ll have or what cool things I’ll explore → perfect uncertainty.
I have friends who can only operate in their comfortable homes and routines and that’s fine.
Now in my 30s I have far less tolerance for uncertainty and ‘going with the flow’. I need a method of brewing good morning coffee, I need a firm bed. These ‘non-negotiables’ increase the older you get but I’m still young enough at 32 that I’m willing to traverse the world and explore new things.
The Problem
If you’re not a travel person, fine.
If you like to take your family to the Dominican Republic and stay at a resort, eating Western food and drinking by the pool, fine.
You do you.
But don’t act as if the way I live my life is so damn crazy.
What I am doing is not impressive, glamorous or ‘baller’
I live to a strict budget. I enjoy the fact that my dollar goes further in Asia and Central America — so sue me.
I don’t want to buy a house to live in, I invest in investment properties instead.
I don’t want to upgrade my car every few years.
We can like different things.
I work hard to give myself what I need at this stage of life: travel and location independence.
Stop acting like you want to travel like me but sadly:
- ‘Covid restrictions’ — at this point Brits and Americans can all travel somewhere
- ‘We’re saving for a house’ — OK that’s your decision then, I chose to travel
- ‘My partner wouldn’t do it’ — OK well again, if it was important enough you’d travel separately or work together to switch to digital work
That’s the point. It’s just a matter of priority. There are a million reasons I could come up with to not travel but I prioritize it out of necessity.
Stop pretending you would travel if it weren’t for these ‘external’ reasons that you have ‘no control’ over.
Bull.
I’m not on a constant vacation.
I still work.
I still workout.
I still eat healthy.
I invest.
I work on myself.
I have stresses.
Expenses.
I also have the stress of figuring out visas, taxes, flights, hotels, buses, Airbnbs, co-working spots, internet speeds and so much more, while living out of one bag.
The Money Justification
This BS excuse to not travel gets its own section because of how asinine it is.
Travel is no longer the privilege of the few elites. We have the internet. It’s game over.
I can find flights for under $20 YES even during Covid.
I can find you an Airbnb for under $10/ night if you pick the right country.
$10/ night x 30 nights = $300 — how much is your rent/ mortgage in the US again???
I can find you DELICIOUS meals on the street for $4 in SE Asia or Mexico.
$4 x 2 meals a day for 1 month (do oatmeal/ toast for breakfast) = $240/ MONTH — what did you spend on your last Trader Joe’s run for the week?
You’re not too broke to travel, you’re too unimaginative and you don’t prioritize it.
You value comfort. And that is FINE.
Traveling With Kids
Here’s a novel idea… take them with you!?
The biggest justification for not traveling among people my age is that they have kids.
In a (nearly) post Covid world, we have far more instances of ‘online school’. If you really, really need to travel you can also just home school them, yourselves.
This might sound ridiculous but let me tell you a story:
In 2018 I met a guy in Medellin who had been traveling for a whole year with his wife and 2 kids, both under 10.
I was really impressed by this. The chap led a fairly privileged life in Johannesburg and saw his kids were becoming entitled and spoiled. So he pulled them out of school and hit the road with his family.
They stay in hostels in SHARED rooms, lived out of backpacks and hitchhiked. He said he had noticed his kids had morphed into far more intelligent, grounded and grateful people. He was planning a second year.
He prioritized travel. It’s not for everyone. It shouldn’t be.
But it’s not impossible.
My Message
Don’t buy into the hype. The sensationalism around digital nomadism.
Not all digital nomads or travelers live in glamorous 5 bedroom villas with a pool, working only 10 days a year but making $2m. Not everyone shoots drone videos of amazing rainforests and pyramids for a living and has cocktails brought to them in hollowed out coconuts.
Some of us are living normal lives, trying to grind it out and trying to strike our own personal balance of certainty vs uncertainty.
We’re trying to learn foreign perspectives, remove our egos and humble ourselves in the face of the unknown.
We are not on vacation.
Stop acting like it.
