I’m writing this post 45 minutes into my wait to get a car problem diagnosed in New Zealand, knowing they haven’t even started looking at it and that their lunch break is approaching. It’s also my first day off in over a week, I’m seven days into a 14-day course of antibiotics, I need to do laundry, and if I want to eat today, I need to cook.
This is the glamor of long-term travel.
Long-term travel isn’t always an escape
Full-time and long-term travel gets this reputation of being an indefinite vacation and an escape from the toils of “real life”. It might even feel that way the first month into it, but I’m sorry to burst your bubble – this is not reality.
When you embark on full-time or long-term travel, that means you’re taking all the trials of daily life along with you. Phone bills, health insurance, taxes, medication, debt, budgeting, cooking, cleaning – everything you do in your life to keep things going, you have to handle while traveling too. Sure, sometimes we can spice up these daily tasks by taking our laptops to a beautiful cafe in a new city and paying our bills there.
But bills are bills, no matter where you pay them.
And you thought being sick at home was bad
My immune system has been pretty battered from my previous work in education, so I’m almost guaranteed to get sick while traveling with the shared housing, crowded transit, and sleepless nights. Being sick on your own is bad enough, but adding in navigating a foreign medical system and health insurance claims – all while sick – just makes everything ten times harder. And if you’re in a country where your native language isn’t the dominant language, add in the additional factor of finding a doctor who speaks your language and the additional cost that tends to attract.
For my most recent sinus infection (see: antibiotics course), I scoured Google for a half decently rated medical practice that had same day appointments and hoped for the best. I secured my appointment and paid the higher “non-citizen” cost for a visit and full price for my prescriptions. At least I have health insurance, I thought, and proceeded to tackle the too complicated claims form only to realize my plan has a $250 deductible.
So I would not, in fact, get that money back unless I rack up another $150 in medical costs in the next year.
Which is not out of the question thanks to my sad immune system, but not something that I feel I should be hoping for as much as I am.
Long-term travel success needs support
And now, once I’ve barely recovered from the latest bout of disease, I’m dealing with car troubles that unfortunately can’t be put off any longer – and could very well cost the entirety of the first paycheck I received just yesterday.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the highs of long-term travel can easily exceed the highs of my routine life back home, but the lows also feel that much lower. Ultimately, none of these are issues I haven’t tackled before or anything that will keep me down for long. But when you’re on your own, especially when you’re skimming the lower ends of your budget capacity, every new challenge and problem that crosses your path feels heavier on your shoulders.
If you’re lucky, you’ll hit these challenges while with a good group of fellow travelers who can sympathize, provide moral support, and help you turn those tough times into funny stories to tell. However, you need to be prepared to handle these things on your own too because the nature of travel is constant flux and change.
Connection is everything
After traveling solo for so long, I can confidently say I can handle any challenges that come my way. Being able to handle a challenge, however, doesn’t mean it’s not going to be hard and that I won’t proceed to call my long-distance friends for a vent session and a much-needed laugh.
I used to be really bad at keeping in touch with people when they were any distance away from me. I’m a very out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of person, which doesn’t mean I don’t love my friends and family when we’re apart, just that I’ll often fail to turn those fond thoughts into tangible actions.
This wasn’t much of an issue when my solo travels were shorter or when I was traveling with others. In recent years, though, I’ve grown to understand how deeply important it is to me to keep those connections and community with my friends and family even while we’re thousands of miles apart. I’m faster now at picking up my phone when a friend crosses my mind and sending them a message in the moment – even the most random, nonsense messages – and keeping those lines of communication open and active.
And for one poor friend, that means sending her every nonsense thought that crosses my mind in the day so she ends up having to read my stream of conscious novel when she catches up on texts once a week (or month).
Meals can heal on long-term travel
And truly, never underestimate the power of eating with someone. I’ve eaten more than my fair share of meals alone, both my own home cooked meals and eating out at restaurants. There’s nothing to be scared of or embarrassed about eating alone, but when you’ve done it for a long time, you can forget the power of sharing a meal with someone else and the community feeling a shared dining table creates.
Don’t be afraid to say yes to an invite from a stranger at a hostel or to hand out your own invites in return. The history of humankind is paved with shared meals at communal tables and that one simple act can ground you in a way you may not have realized you were missing.
Plan for a positive future
As much as I would love to say long-term travel is truly an indefinite vacation, on many days it feels anything but. Any problem that could be solved in one step back home now suddenly feels like you need a doctorate or full-time secretary to complete. But if you leverage the fact that you are a full-time traveler, you can finds way to keep that balance and remind yourself why you’re doing this.
It can be easy to hide away when things get tough, and I won’t begrudge anyone the occasional day of bed rot (goodness knows I need one of those every so often). But you can bed rot anywhere and that’s not why you travel.
Visit a free museum, take a walk in a park or along a trail, ask a stranger to share a meal or a drink at a new spot in town, take a day trip somewhere magical. Or just take a long, hot shower to cleanse that bad energy away until you’re ready to start again.
And as I finished writing this post, I got the call from the service center that the cost of repair is going to be a lot more than I first thought. Then I lost this whole post due to a computer problem and had to retype the whole thing (thankfully I managed to snag photos of the document before it was taken to the void).
Some days are just tough and this is one of them. So now I’m going to move forward and focus on good things ahead: a warm meal, time spent with friends, and making exciting plans for my next day off.
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