The 5 hard truths about backpacking the World.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE HARD ABOUT BACKPACKING ?
When you come home and all your friends ask how your trip was, you will most likely be talk about the mountains you've climbed, lessons you've learned, beautiful places that you've seen, and how many awesome people you've met. However what you most likely won't tell them is how hard it was to leave those new people you meet, how cold it was climbing that mountain, how lost you were in those places, how tired you were from the people snoring in the hostels, how insecure you are about your future, how much you have drifted from your friends.
1. Coming home
If you have ever been away from home for a little while, then you have probably felt that feeling of missing the company of your family and friends, the cooked meals your mother makes, the comfort of your bed. It's completely natural to feel like this, we are social creatures, but what is even harder is coming home to people who don't understand you. People change all the time, but much like when you don't see a baby for a year, the growth is very visible. Well the same goes for when you come home, you are different and it can be a bit of a shock to your family and friends. What I found out though, is that the real shock is inside you, when you find out that the close relationship's you've had with your friends has drifted, when you feel like your family doesn't understand your actions. When you see the world through the eyes of a traveller, it's hard to choose to go blind and follow societies way's. I have spend many years in the Army, endured many cold nights with no sleep or food, went for months without a shower, ate what can only be described as "dog food", lost the feeling in my fingers and toes, been so wet for so long that I thought I was becoming an aquatic animal. Yet none of that compares to the feeling of not being understood.
2. Saying Goodbye
By far one of the best things about travelling, is the people you meet. Even though sometimes you cannot speak the same language, the conversations you have are more real, more intense, more meaningful and more honest. You become good friends very quickly, living with 10 people in a room makes you comfortable with one another very quickly. Everything about the people you meet is interesting, where they come from, the language they speak, the ideologies they share. I guess you can compare this to when you were young, a little kid in a play park, the world was so innocent back then, the friendships were so passionate. It's much the same with fellow travellers, they are more open, innocent and free, which is why friendships formed are so strong. This all sounds amazing, until a week later. It's 10am and your friend is rushing to the front desk to return the key before the 10am check out. This is when you have to say Goodbye to this awesome person, who lives on the other side of the world, who you shared some awesome memories with, and the chances are that you will never meet again.
3. Life after travelling
If you are a traveller and this doesn't scare you, then you are full of shit. Everything in life comes and goes, even life it's self. For many of us, the same goes for travelling. One day this adventure will end, and you will be waking up at stupid O'clock, not to check out the awesome sunrise over some majestic mountain, but to get in your car and park it on a highway for a couple hours, before arriving to a job you most likely won't like.
I have a passion for photography (click here for Instagram), and like almost ALL, hobby photographers dream of that passion becoming my job, but what if it doesn't ? It's crazy when I'm travelling I'm happy to be carrying heavy stuff, be cleaning toilets, deal with annoying customers, but the though of having a solid career, staying in one place, having a boring life, scares the living shit out of me.
Photography above - @Zeinskt
4. Discomfort
Traveling is fun and adventurous, there is no doubt about it. Being lost in an amazing city can be an amazing experience, but being late for a bus or plane is NOT. Walking around 40c heat with a backpack containing all you need to survive for a year is a pretty crap feeling. Always having to be super cautious about your camera, laptop, phone, wallet ect ect. Being in a hostel with loud smelly people, who don't give a shit that you're sleeping is also a shit feeling. I specifically remember the second last day of my Icelandic road trip. It was -1c, the wind was so strong, that you couldn't walk. I was in my tent freezing, fearing that I was going to be blown away. Or the time I decided to try climb a mountain while being drunk, that was a dumb decision. Long story short, while traveling I have found my self wet, cold, scared, and lost more times than I'd like to admit. I have broken my phone, missed buses, ran out of money, and got a disease (jokes).
ps. I totally don't have any diseases, believe me.
5. You will be poor !
It's simple, there is no arguing this, I don't care what you say !!! You will be poor. No matter what your dad does, what you did in the past life to please the God's, You will be POOR. Accept this and move on.
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Instagram : andrew_abroad
