10 Things You Wish You’d Known About Travelling

The first time I went travelling I had a clear picture in my mind about how it would be. A few months later I wished somebody would have told me these 10 things:

My boss in New Zealand looking rather helpless at this huge fire

1. It’s boring

You better believe it. You might be in a foreign and exotic country but the actual process of getting from point A to point B can be mindboggelingly boring. I was sitting on a train from Jaiphur to Jaiselmer and it only takes about half an hour until you’ve seen everything there is of the desert. After that you only have another 10 hours or so left.

2. It’s dirty

Well, not travelling per se. It’s more yourself. Raise your hand if you have been travelling when you were at your dirtiest! I was sitting on the back of a pick-up truck from Poipet to Siam Reap for 11 hours straight, dodging potholes larger than the Grand Canyon, and when we finally arrived the red dust from the road had melted into my skin. Three days later the water still turned slightly pink when I showered.

3. It’s exhausting

After a while, being in a new place every couple days takes its toll on you. Back home, before your trip, everything looks rosy. You imagine yourself jet-setting from one cool place to the next. Reality looks different. You can get fed up with it and if you don’t pace yourself, travelling will exhaust you and all the fun you’ve had just disappears into thin air.

4. It’s dangerous

Well, not really, but it can be. I have never had so many accidents while travelling. There were motorbike accidents in Kupang, on Koh Samui and Koh Tao, a bus accident four hours west of Bangalore and just across the border from Vietnam in Laos and a diving accident on Gili Trawangan. In Thailand I had Typhoid Fever and I lost 4 toenails in total climbing various silly volcanoes.

5. It’s lonely

You can be in the most populous nations on earth. There might be large numbers of travellers and tourists around you and still, you might be the lonliest person on the planet. I think you have to be able to cope with being alone when travelling long-term. In Indonesia I travelled east and didn’t meet a single english-speaking person for nearly a month. When I arrived back on Lombok I was gagging for a normal conversation.

6. It’s bloody hard work

When you travel you do stuff like climb volcanoes, hike 20 km a day and wait 8 hours in the blistering sun while trying to hitchhike. You sweat a lot and you also walk a lot, because you see a lot more that way. For me it was normal to feel absolutely stiff at the end of a day. And let’s not forget about all the bureaucratic stuff like standing in line to buy a train ticket or get a new visa almost every month.

7. It’s sad

For most people travelling is all about seeing new, different cultures. But sometimes you just see so much that it gets hard to cope with. We can afford our long trips because we come from countries with strong currencies and mainly go to countries where the middle class makes less money a month than you in a day. You see real poverty and what it does to people. In India, children still get disfiguered so they can make more money begging.

8. It’s unhealthy

Let’s be honest here. We all love a bit of party once in a while. And then there are days or weeks where all you seem to do is drink booze and smoke the odd spliff. Is that wrong? Nah, cause everybody’s doing it, right, but it certainly isn’t good for your body.

9. It’s ridiculous

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing out there in the big wide world. I had days where I asked myself if I’m still travelling for all the right reasons or if I’m running away from something that isn’t yet clear to me. This seems to happen more often the longer I travel. Not that many people live the same life as me and my lifestyle doesn’t really conform to what society expects from me. Sometimes I have doubts about where it will all lead.

10. But still…

I wish someone would have told me these nine things before I went on that first trip. Now, that I know these things, I also know that there is a tenth point. And that is that in the end it’s all worth it. Travelling might be boring and unhealthy and lonely, but it’s only occasionally like so. While I feel lonely I might have my doubts, but once I pulled through that, travelling gives me a buzz better than any drug you can imagine. Try it. You might find that you like it. And if you do, you’re hooked. Just like me…