One of the things I hear a lot on my travels, especially from people back home, is “on your vacation.”.
This typically comes from people who don’t want to bother me with something, people who feel bad taking my time away from wherever I am to talk to me whether it’s about something important or just catching up. These people mean well – they want to make sure that they don’t distract me from my experience.
But long term travel is a way of living, it isn’t a vacation.
Oftentimes, people will go pretty off grid while on a vacation, they want to be in the moment and experience everything they can so they put things on the backburner until they get home. Emergencies aside, this isn’t typically a big deal as most vacations are at most 2/3 weeks.
Long term travel is living your life in multiple places. Sometimes it’s slow, and you’re in one place for a couple of months. Sometimes it’s fast and you jump from place to place. Either way, it’s everyday life that just looks a bit different.
That means that there are days where all I want to do is sit on the phone with family and friends and touch base. Just like when I lived in VA, I love getting a text from a friend whether that be something silly, a simple smiley face, or a long drawn out rant.
I have bad days. I have days where I don’t do anything. I have days that are dedicated to errands like laundry or grocery shopping. I have days where I have to catch up on sleep and don’t go out. I have days where I’m sick. I have days where I fit in 10 different things. I have days where I talk to no one and days where I don’t meet a stranger. Sure, there are still days where I go offline to be more in the moment. But I used to do that back at home too. Every place that I’ve been for more than 2 or 3 days, I fall into a routine. Times that I do things, places to eat, places to think, places to work.
Long term travel doesn’t mean I stop living, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from the people I care about. It just means I don’t have a permanent address but the potential for a new home every time I get somewhere new.
