By this point I think it’s been pretty obvious that I spent my time in Albania going MIA online. I had a bunch from my time in Northern Europe scheduled, but then I just didn’t pick it all back up.
At first it was because I was relaxing. But then it was because I was distracted. Distracted by my own self.
I went from two extremes in travel – packing as much as I could into a short amount of time. Traveling constantly. To basically not going anywhere besides one city for 3 months.
Some people would say that was me transitioning into slow travel – but honestly, I know myself and it wasn’t. I found myself falling into bad habits. I spent a lot of time reading, and a lot of time working.
I know I know – but Holly there wasn’t any posts and you currently don’t have a job, what were you working on?
Easy – I was doing the occasional post – I just didn’t post them. But the bulk of my “working” time was spent helping around the Hostel that I was staying at. I really loved my time there and met a lot of different people that I’m hoping to stay in touch with for years to come!
But, and I should’ve known this, working where I sleep isn’t a good idea for me. I can’t separate. I’m not talking digital work – I’m talking being a point of contact for the hostel. Suddenly I went from hanging out on my ‘off’ time out in the public areas to hanging out in staff only areas (mostly my bed). I was reading a ridiculous amount again. It’s one of the ways that I relax when my sense of responsibility is riding me hard and I fell back into it so quickly it’s not even funny. And it’s going to take a lot of work to break that habit again. I’ve read so many books in the last couple of months – I’m not even adding them all to my list on here because not all of them are worth it.
I think that working digitally would be different because the people that I would be interacting with in the real world wouldn’t have anything to do with my work – and I’m obviously looking into that so that I can travel even longer – but it really is interesting how easily I fell back into those old habits.
So now I’m on my way to Athens, and tomorrow I catch a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. It’ll be my first time in Thailand and I’m looking forward to exploring more of SE Asia! And hopefully it’ll be the kick I need.
