Hello friends!! I have been adrift full-time since mid-May. It’s mid-September already, meaning that I have already been traveling for ⅓ of a year. CRAZY!! I’m writing this post in a hostel on my last night in Ireland. Tomorrow, I’ll board my plane back to the States, for a week in Seattle and a month in New York City to reflect on my time in Europe, to spend time with loved ones, and to prepare for the next phase of my journey.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, after my first reflection back in July, on beating decision paralysis and not taking things personally. Many lessons have piled up since then, but here are my three biggest takeaways:
#1: Rest Days Are Crucial
At the end of July, I finished my apprenticeship with Ernesto at Bravanariz, his natural perfumery brand. I had planned to stop in San Sebastian, Bilbao, and Porto for around ten days before meeting up with my boyfriend Nick in Lisbon.
When I showed up in San Sebastian after twelve hours on the train, I was ready to move, excited to escape the heat of the convent and explore a brand new environment after being based in one place for almost two months. I checked into the hostel and gorged myself on two sandwiches, then walked around and spent the entire night at a dance club with new hostel friends.
The next day, I walked over 30,000 steps, rushing from sight to sight. I couldn’t stay present because I was thinking about the next place to go. I didn’t get home and off my feet until past dark. That night, as I lay in bed, I felt aching in my bones and soreness through my whole body.
I had much more that I still wanted to see, but I knew that my body couldn’t take much more of this. Feeling small and afraid, I Googled “travel rest days” and found tons of resources, like this and this.
From these articles, I’ve learned that it’s really beneficial (and more sustainable, if you’re traveling long term), to take a travel rest day every four to seven days. Sometimes I take the full day off, and other times, I’ll do a half day and go explore in the afternoon. My only requirement for a rest day is that I avoid booking a major tour or activity.
I know when I need to take a rest day by listening to my body, and observing if I am becoming more stressed, anxious, and reactive. I tell myself that it’s okay to take more rest days than usual when I’m on my period.
You can do whatever you want on a rest day. In the past, I’ve:
- Caught up on my online climate change class lectures, and other work I had been putting off
- Written up a blog post
- Slept in, done my laundry, and planned the next few weeks of travel
- Called friends and family
- Read a book and/or journaled at a cute cafe
- Gone to a spa
- Watched half a season of Never Have I Ever
In addition to travel rest days, I’m consciously incorporating “lodging” rest days into my trip planning. I’m an introvert and need time alone to recharge, and it took me a while to realize how draining sleeping in dorm rooms with 6-20 people was. If I go without private space for too long, I start to feel paranoid about my belongings getting stolen and antisocial toward other travelers.
I decided that every so often, it’s worth the extra cost for me to sleep in a private room. So, I started doing a 2:1 ratio of hostel stays to private stays, and it’s going so much better.
#2: Travel Shouldn’t Be a Checklist. Travel Should Spark Joy.
I spent thirty minutes waiting in line for Livraria Lello, one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world and one of Porto’s MUST-DO attractions. I hoped to step inside and immediately be swept into the delicious smell of paper, to be amazed by beautiful book covers from around the world. But, in reality, the book selection was worse than that of an airport bookstore, and you couldn’t walk a few steps without bumping into a tourist’s camera lens. I left the store feeling disappointed. Before that, I’d spent 6 Euros on some expensive coffee at Majestic Café just because it was listed on every travel blogger’s itinerary.
I was bored of waiting in massive lines, of paying a lot of money to see similar castles, churches, and historical buildings in every city. They were all blurring together. Yet another part of me felt like I needed to see all the major sights in a city in order to say that I had been there. Instead of feeling like an adventure, travel was turning into a to-do list, an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, and then repeat the next day with a different batch of notable places. What was I trying to prove, and to whom?
In this period of confusion and angst, I turned to my friend Connor, who also quit his job to travel full-time for a year. It was comforting to learn that he was experiencing something similar. We were both shifting away from seeing as much as possible every day to a slower kind of travel, where we chose to only do experiences that sparked joy for us. (Another really helpful thing was an Ezra Klein podcast episode on the gamification of life).
Now, I try to prioritize one or two activities in a day, and when I’m doing those things, I try to be 100% present. Instead of seeing major monuments, I’m spending more of my time going on long walks through cities and nature, or finding unique, interesting experiences and people.
#3: If Plan A Doesn’t Work, Reroute. There’s No Plan B.
Over the last month or two, I’ve been battling with guilt and self-doubt about traveling full-time for a year.
Worries about how other people must view me filled my head. I must look so selfish and careless, willing to cause massive damage to the world just so I could travel for a few extra months.
Doubt that I wouldn’t be able to find a job next summer bubbled up, so I started talking to companies early, looking up interview resources, trying to set up a part time job for the new year to juggle while I traveled. I even mentioned cutting my travel short by a few months to friends.
I was careening toward a creative U-Turn (a new term I picked up last week from The Artist’s Way), meaning that I was at a point when an artist stops pursuing a creative goal or project due to fear, negativity, and/or pain.
Until I heard wise advice from ultra runner Hellah Sidibe in an interview with Rich Roll while hiking through the woods in Ireland: “If Plan A doesn’t work, reroute. There’s no Plan B.” He means that instead of pursuing many plans at once because you don’t believe that your first plan will work out, you should have one North Star, and even though you may face hardship along the way, you will figure it out.
Hellah helped me realize that I was losing sight of my goals in Plan A (travel) by putting too much energy into Plan B (future career). I remembered that I’m taking this gap year for so many more reasons than to just prepare to get a job in climate change. I’m also taking this gap year to:
- Grow my spirituality
- Learn to love myself and feel comfortable in my skin
- Take a break after grinding in every area of my life for the last ten years
- Find inspiration in amazing people and places
This interview also got me to reflect on how much I’ve loved my time in Ireland, showing me that maybe I wasn’t tired of traveling in general, but was actually just tired of Mediterranean Europe, which was causing me to crave the familiarity of home, work, and loved ones. Rerouting was all I needed to do to feel back on track.
Now, I am heading home with this heavy weight lifted. I have replaced it with gratitude for all that I’ve learned in these past four months, and genuine excitement for what’s in store for the next eight.
Before I go, here’s a quote from the book Vagabonding that I really resonate with when thinking about this last period of travel:
Let’s suppose you decide to dip your toe in dreams like relocating to the Caribbean for island hopping or taking a safari in the Serengeti. It will be wonderful and unforgettable, and you should do it. There will come a time, however–be it three weeks or three months later–when you won’t be able to drink another piña colada or photograph another red-assed baboon. That day will come. Self-criticism and existential panic attacks usually start around this time. But this is what I always wanted! How can I be bored? Oh my god, what am I gonna do with myself? Don’t freak out and fuel the fire. This is normal among all high-performers who downshift after working hard for a long time. The smarter and more goal-oriented you are, the tougher these growing pains will be. Don’t be afraid of the existential or social challenges. Freedom is like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting enough to keep things interesting at all times. Once you have learned the basics, though, it becomes clear that having less work is easy. It’s filling the void with more life that is hard. Finding excitement, as it turns out, takes more thought than simple workaholism. But don’t fret. That’s where all the rewards are.
Tim Ferriss
Until next time!
Allison
tielqueen 