And I haven't even really travelled that long! I’ve been travelling in Southeast Asia with my man for about two months, which does not seem that long in the grand scheme of life, but it feels like a long time to me. In two months I haven’t slept in the same bed for more than 5 nights, I’m living out of a backpack with the same clothing, and I’ve been living in countries that don’t speak my native language. I’ve learned a few things about long term travel, specifically backpacking. One important thing to realize about my trip is that I’m paying for everything, so I’m on a tight budget. Honestly, it’s not a lot of money, but it does get me pretty far here. That being said, sometimes I have to stick with budget accommodations and skip the fancy tours to save money.
Location, location, location. I cannot express just how important location is to enjoying your trip. For example, I thought this Vietnamese beach town (Mui Ne) would be nice, but I was wrong. The beaches were filthy, the food was overpriced, and the accommodations were lacking. I was questioning why I ever wanted to travel for so long and I wanted to go home. I was tired and feeling very uninspired. Then, we moved to our current location, Da Lat, and I’m so happy. I feel encouraged to write and explore and I could travel the world for years! This showed me just how important the location is to having a good trip. What I really learned from that experience was to only book one night at a new place. I read all of the reviews online that I can find, and I look up pictures, but everyone’s perception is different and what makes one person happy may not make another person happy.
Slow down. When you’re moving from city to city or country to country it can get exhausting very quickly. And I’m the type of person who just goes until I crash, which happens much more quickly abroad than it does at home. I’ve learned that it’s okay to slow down. I have 6 months here, and I don’t need to rush to make sure I don’t miss anything. I have the time to be able to take it all in, and take it slow. I expected long term travel to be like one giant adventure where I’m just running from place to place when in reality its a bit slower. I can spend a whole week at one place and not worry that I’ll miss out on the next place, because the luxury of long term travel is the time.
It is not as glamorous as all those instagram models make it out to be. Sometimes I’m sleeping on a dirty bed desperately trying not to touch anything because I couldn’t find another room for that night. Our dirty laundry piles up and we have to find places to do laundry that aren’t as clean as my laundry machine back home. The language barrier is frustrating and I find myself mad at myself for not learning more of the language, even though I can only learn so much at a time. But then I take a look out the window and see the beautiful view of mountains and pastel colored houses, and I take a deep breath. I sip my matcha latte and look around me and remember just how amazing it really is. Experiencing new cultures with my best friend by my side is worth all the gross beds, dirty laundry, and frustrations. It’s worth it over and over again.
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