That it gets boring really fast.
I’ll talk about backpacking in particular.
With this kind of travel, you live out of a bag, putting all of your possessions into one knapsack and hauling it about. Traveling anywhere is possible for backpackers, however North America is typically quite costly for foreign travel, and Africa is often quite pricey.
Now, that sounds extremely amazing to live out of a bag, forget your cares, travel about and experience the globe. Though it comes with its own issues and extreme boredoms, it is in many ways quite thrilling.
First off, a long-term stay in a hostel usually stinks.
Your inability to have any privacy becomes annoying. Being roused up during the night by other travelers slamming doors, turning on lights, staggering in utterly wasted, snoring like an active volcano, or rolling in their bulky luggage before painstakingly and loudly unpacking it is equally annoying. It might be really hard to actually obtain a good night's sleep in many hostels.
It starts to mount up this sleeplessness.
The issue of money worries backpackers a lot as well. It starts to get expensive to do nothing except travel. Where you go will determine how much it costs. Over $50 a night can be spent on some hostel beds. That is unfeasible if you intend to travel extensively. Actually, some hostels may charge $2 or $3 each night. These were really respectable hostels that I stayed at in southern Mexico.
But checking your money balance and squeezing pennies all day long is not enjoyable.
Boredom is then the biggest issue of all. I once went nine months backpacking, doing all kinds of stuff. I put money away for the journey, stayed in remote areas, and saw a remarkably vast area of the planet. I climbed up jungle mountains alone, saw volcanoes, and wandered across incredibly desolate desert landscapes, but it all became quite monotonous very fast.
The schedule settled into the same:
- Hostel wake up.
- As much of the shit breakfast as you can eat.
- Make small talk with other tourists.
- Become aware that most long-term travellers suffer from depression.
- Find the least expensive lunch, or pass after such a large breakfast.
- Drift about the town or the countryside.
- Have dinner.
- Once more strike up a little conversation with gloomy travelers.
- In bed, scan phone.
- Get roused up all through the night.
For months on end, this process is repeated. In the days before cellphones and the internet, I suppose it would have been more thrilling as passengers had to communicate with one other. Getting to intriguing locations was difficult, and communicating internationally was a problem. Such difficulties heighten the excitement. With the internet these days, leaving home makes little sense. Neither do many locations cater to the lone traveler. All you are to them is another visitor attempting to enter their eatery.
Though formally you are a tourist, you may enjoy pretending you are an adventurer from hundreds of years ago. Whatever your best efforts to claim you're not a tourist, that's a kick to your ego. But somewhere deep down you kind of understand you're on extended vacation, traveling about and feeling as though life is passing you by like a tape recorder.
I came across people who had completely lost their soul. They were lifeless spiritually. Unrooted travel wiped them out. People who spent years on the road at odd jobs. Once you know how, it's really incredibly simple to travel on a shoestring in several parts of the world. Things you can do are fantasies of non-travelers. Among these include mountain-climbing, hitchhiking, touring the world's greatest wonders, and embarking on the wildest adventures.
I carried out each and every one of these.
But it gets so terribly boring when this becomes your routine. I just recall shrugging my shoulders after watching the most stunning volcano of my life.
You become acutely aware that you are alone as all the other travellers you have met disappear every day. Long-term human company and, eventually, love are the most fulfilling and important forces in life, no matter how far you wander. Many times, independent travelers mistake the excitement of physical travel for the far more intense excitement of spiritual and emotional travels.
First time backpacking can be thrilling. It was, at the time, the most amazing rush I had ever had in my life. It exhilarating and freeing. It becomes boring after a few repetitions, though. You come to see that the globe is no longer uncharted territory and is full with the same supermarkets, vehicles, jobs, habits, and soul-searching.
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