When you ask someone that is stuck in a position they hate, whether that be a job, location, or relationship, a common response is:
“I want to travel.”
I reply to this first with a “that’s awesome”, but instead of following it up with asking where, I ask the more important question of why.
You see, full-time travel to most people is a foreign concept (pun intended). Perhaps they’ve spent a week in a tropical resort sitting by the pool, on a touristy romp through Paris, or a cruise through the Mediterranean, but they’ve never really “traveled”.
They’ve vacationed, but they’ve never traveled.
I’m going to dispel some of the biggest myths about taking a sabbatical to travel, becoming location independent, or being a vagabonding nomad who wanders the world.
This post is not about keeping you stuck in a life you hate and not taking risks (that would be a bit hypocritical of me after quitting my job to travel full-time while I work).
What this post is about is having realistic expectations for quitting a job, taking a year off, or planning a gap month to travel the world.
Sticking it to the man and going out on your own to “find yourself” is a life changing decision and I’d love to help anyone take their first big step towards making it a reality. (Just head on over to the Pocket Changed Facebook page and leave me a note.) And on Thursday I’ll be publishing a post naming the best reasons why you should travel the world.
But for now, let’s discuss the six biggest myths about quitting your job to travel the world.
Myth #1: Its Easy to Minimize Your Possessions
By all means, sell your crap and pay your off your debt before you travel. It will give you some extra cash to spend while you’re on the road. It is not as easy as it sounds though.
I believe that anyone will buy anything off of Craigslist, especially in a populated urban area, but sometimes not at the price you’d expect. You will end up donating or throwing away a lot of your stuff. And unless you can say goodbye to everything under what you can fit in a 50 pound bag, you’ll need a place to store your stuff until you get back.
This task is also extremely time consuming. You’ll spend hours and hours trying to get rid of your things if you want to get any substantial cash from them. In my opinion it is still worth it to do this, but know what you are getting yourself into.
Understand that you don’t have to get rid of all of your stuff before you go travel.
Myth #2: It is Always Fun
When you are traveling non-stop there are bound to be problems that come up. It was not fun when my car disappeared in Chicago or broke down in Phoenix. (It ended up being towed and had a dead battery.)
If you are traveling with others, conflict can easily arise between the people on the trip as well. I had a friend tell me that he and his girlfriend broke up mid trip and flew back on separate flights. Build in alone time for yourself when you travel with others so you don’t reach a breaking point.
Some people told my wife and I that we were crazy to plan on spending three straight months in a car together during the first few months of our marriage. We survived, but that much time living out of a suitcase, not having a regular schedule, days spent driving 14 hours, and sporadic exercise can be wearing on anybody, even if you’re in love.
Understand that there will be ups and downs during your trip and don’t take them too hard when they hit.
Myth #3: People Will Understand Why You Are Doing It
Your friends and family will be happy for you, but they won’t fully understand why you are doing it. You’ll have to explain how you are paying for it, why you left everything behind, where you are going, etc.
Some people will begrudgingly tell you they are jealous and that they “wish they could do that”. When you try to explain to them that they could do it too, they will think of every possible excuse why they can’t.
Understand that you will have doubters and get used to explaining why you gave up XYZ to travel.
Myth #4: You Only Work 4 Hours a Week
So you read a book and now you think you can start a business, make money from anywhere, and only work a few hours a month? Great! Let me know how that works out for you.
Not to go anti-four hour workweek or anything (I still read it once a year because there are so many great principles and hacks in it), but to think that you can try to build a successful and scaleable business while at the same time you are enjoying the world on the road is a myth.
The order needs to be:
- build a successful business
- remove yourself from the process
- sit on a beach drinking mai tais
Understand that if you want to only work a few hours while you travel, you better spend a lot of time up front building a business that supports that.
Myth #5: You Can Do It Forever
There are a limited few that can actually travel full-time at length without a having permanent home. Both Jodi from Legal Nomads and Benny from Fluent in 3 Months have been traveling for years straight. I envy their travel stamina.
My wife and I learned that our breaking point for being on the road was about two months. The novelty started to wear off and living without a schedule started to really get to us. Waking up in a different bed every night is something that is hard to get used to.
And it wasn’t as if we could just say, “okay, we’re done, let’s go back home.” We still had a month left on our trip and had to drive from the east coast to the west coast of the U.S. We had fun in the last month, but we were running on fumes.
Understand that at some point you are most likely going to have to “come home”, deal with what you left behind, and have a real life again.
Myth #6: Living Out of a Suitcase or Backpack is Freeing
It is actually kind of a big pain to only have a few possessions to your name. When you get rid of all of your things you do have the peace of mind knowing that everything you own is on your back, but its not all rainbows and unicorns. I am all for living minimally and going against the consumerist mindset, but you need certain things.
Unless you are going to never have a permanent home again or you are going to mooch off people like your family every few months, you are eventually going to have “stuff” again. I am talking furniture, kitchenware, more than two pairs of underwear, etc. When you come back you are going to need to buy a bunch of your “stuff” again. That’s going to cost money that you probably won’t have to spare if you do travel like most people do and spend your last dime on the flight home.
Understand how frustrating it can be to not have all of your first-world luxuries when you decide to travel full-time.
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Now its your turn: What are some of the cons of long-term travel? Let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
(images via Stuck in Customs)
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Very insightful and interesting! You brought up a lot of things to think about if someone is considering making this life change.
Thanks Alex.
I don’t think people should never travel, I just think there are certain things they should be aware of before they take a huge step.
Yep constant travel sure can be tiring but there’s odd feeling when you finally settle somewhere for a week or two, that you get a yearning to be on the move again. It’s strange but true and it does take you out of your comfort zone so you’re constantly needing to adapt and change and make do with what you have and the situation you’re in. As you say Caleb not everyone is cut out for this type of lifestyle. But in my mind I am made for it and therefore love it!
It definitely does take a certain kind of person to do it constantly and we were doing great for the first two months, but it got draining after that. In the future we’ll aim for 3 to 6 week trips.
Having done this (long-term extended travel thru Asia while working from the road), I concur with ALL of these - especially knowing your traveling time limits and getting used to people saying “You’re lucky - it would be sooo nice to do that,” but not really meaning it. I wasn’t “lucky” - I knew what I wanted to do, I created a means by which I could do it, and THEN I DID IT (what a novel idea).
Regarding selling all your possessions, or not having a home base, there are ways around that especially if you live somewhere you’d like to come back to. My husband and I sublet our place (in downtown SF) for a pretty penny every time we hit the road and make a decent chunk to help offset the living costs of wherever we’re going. We definitely had the “maybe we should just stay here” moments when we’ve fallen in love w various cities and if you want to have the flexibility to really not come back, subletting isn’t a great option. But I highly recommend it!
What a novel idea indeed.
Great point about subletting too Alexis. We are thinking of picking a home base and then offering our place to friends and family to use while we go on week or month-long jaunts around the world. As long as we plan far enough in advance, with living in San Diego people could use our place as a vacation home of sorts.
To do a proper sublet we would either need to have a pretty awesome landlord or own our place though, so it would most likely need to be short trips for a while.
Let’s make this required reading for any would-be nomads. Having a place to hang your shirts and a drawer to stash your electrical converters is a freedom all its own.
To me it was doing all this travel knowing that I had given up my “home” by packing everything we own and putting it in storage. It was the only way for us to do it, but not having a “home” to return to was hard.
Great pics man! Did you take them yourself? What did you use?
Another myth is that after a while, you feel like an unproductive member of society, not giving back anything in return. As if the world is passing you by.
Sam
Agreed. I started to feel that way towards the end of my honeymoon. I was ready to get back at “leaving a legacy”.
As for the pictures, I didn’t take them.
They are all from Trey Ratcliff from Stuck in Customs.
Hey Caleb, thanks for bursting some of the myths about traveling around. We heard how “romantic” it is to travel around the world with your partner. I particularly considered Myth #3 as the most popular because we are often told that people will understand why we are doing this. How easy will it be to convince people that you are leaving your life and go around the world?
Thanks for bursting some of the myths Caleb.
Number two is a big myth! More often than not, traveling is HARD. Especially when you’re sleeping in a new bed every night.
I figured out I don’t like being constantly on the move, and instead have perfected my own brand of travel: the go-somewhere-and-stay-put method. I lived in New Zealand for six months, rented a flat and owned a car. For five weeks in Costa Rica, I lived with a host family. My boyfriend and I spent 5 months in Australia last year, half the time in Sydney and half in Byron Bay. In each place we found short-term flat rentals and had a space to call our own.
In this way, you can experience a new place, but also maintain a sense of routine and even become a part of the community. This s my favorite way to ‘travel.’
Excellent reality check for us would-be nomads! It’s so true that everyone has to find their own ‘saturation point’ for the nomadic life. I spent two months traveling in Southeast Asia last winter, and I thought that such a length of time would satisfy my wanderlust. But, when my weeks ran out I realized I’d only scratched the surface.
Once I’d pared down to what fit in a backpack (and a daypack!) I realized how freeing it was not to have to worry about so much stuff. How easy it was to decide what to wear when the choices were so limited!
So, I’m ready for a longer journey - but I’m not holding any illusions that 6 months or a year of vagabonding will be all fun and games.
Nice post. And beautiful photos!
What a great post! Those myths are true and should be considered before travelling. I just love the idea of that when you travel, you can do it forever! There are lots of places that we need to go to and will give us the satisfaction that we so desire. But how about handling the changes when it comes to letting your employer know about your decision? With this issue, there are some things that I would like to suggest to help you manage your exit gracefully and like a pro. Here it is: http://marieforleo.com/2011/12/quitting-your-job-starting-a-business/
Nice stuff. I always believe there’s a flip side to everything, even the supposedly good stuff in life.
It’s as simple as how people think internet marketing or blogging is easy thanks to all the gurus promising instant cash and stuff. But when you go down to it, you actually see the real hard work that’s needed.