Travel For Yourself And Not Anyone Else

Like anyone on the streets, we are complete strangers. But hold on, I know you. You flip through countless pages of National Geographic Traveler magazines at the bookstore, look up many travel blogs, and your favorite channels have all got to do with travels. Doing so much to find any bit of inspiration to stir you into buying an air ticket and flying away for some time, you are indeed very inspired. But yet you have second thoughts when it comes to serious talk about buying that air ticket. You want to be an audience, a spectator that read and watch people’s travels out of your comfort zone. Deep down, there is a huge burning desire to get out there and unleash that adventurous and carefree spirit of yours.

You are the guy on the 29th floor of your office building churning out some late night reports of which deadlines are tomorrow, and you have no idea how much longer you can hold before you change this job of yours. You are also the girl scooping ice-cream in that mini ice-cream shop yet worrying about your examinations coming up real soon, which determines your final grading for a degree which you don’t even care. But I know, you are doing all these to live it up to expectations of someone. Someone like your parents, friends or whoever because they love you and you don’t want to screw it all up by doing something different.

Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien.

You tell yourself, the travel opportunity will come. You are just waiting, waiting for the right moment to go. We don’t have much time, we all live once and be young once. Are you living or are you just existing? They are worlds apart. You will be waiting for college graduation, and then waiting to get a job. Before you know it, you will be waiting till you retire. We all live in an imperfect world. If you want something, you need to go get it. Every excuse you give yourself will be a step away from reality. As much as you want to finish the next series of Breaking Bad, you ache to explore the world.

Fly like the city of angels

You are who you are

Regardless of whoever your best friend might think of you, or maybe your girlfriend, or even your dearest parents. You are who you are. You are not in this world to live up to people’s’ expectations. You need to be yourself, doing what you love. Your parents might be skeptical about your plans, but the more you need to prove it to the world that you are doing what you love. They are not going to love you less in any way, just like they are not going to love you less when you are eating a tub of ice-cream in the middle of the night.

Go to where you really want to go

Just because you have seen tons of pictures on Facebook of friends having their adventures in Costa Rica, that doesn’t mean you must have your fair share of time there too. When you have no travel partners to go on a trip with, don’t just go somewhere just because your friends are going with you. Go somewhere where you are aching to go for a long time because of the food, culture or landscapes. It will be more than a getaway, it will widen your perspective. You might have seen some gorgeous pictures of the Swiss Alps on postcards when you are in high school and you thought that place is just a dream. But it is not. Are you putting it off just because you have no one else to go with? Try doing it solo, you might love it.

Start saving up

We can’t travel without money, but what we can do is to keep out costs to the minimal while still keeping it enjoyable and rocking. You might have friends from well to do family and they can travel as much and as far as they want but you will also have friends that are working two jobs. I have many friends that tell me they have no extra finances to do traveling but yet I see them not doing anything to put travel into their priority.

• Stop spending your money on booze, it is tempting when your best friend invites you go hit some clubs over the weekends but you need to exert some self-control over here. Are you really going to spending at least 30 dollars for the cover charge, drinks and the taxi back home?
• Stop shopping for your new-found fashion craze, fashion will run out some time down the road which means you will stop wearing them.
• Cook your own food. It is healthier and you save money, simple as that. If you can’t cook, learn. I used to work as barista in California and it amazed me how much people are willing to spending on a cup of caramel macchiato.

Admit it, if you are not doing any bit for traveling, you will not.

The world is your teacher

You will discover new cultures and habits while you are traveling. There are unlimited rooms for personal growth. You will realize the outsider views of your home country and learn to accept rejections and failures. It doesn’t take long before you know how long you had been sitting in that comfort zone or how biased your education was. Soon enough, you will be back home in your new sphere with raw perspectives. The world is big, real big.

Not everyone wants to travel

You can be the guy flipping through Lonely Planet guidebooks, but there are other people looking to master some drawings. Everyone is created to be different and this is what makes the world special. After all, you want to travel and meet new people and that’s when these people will bring you new perspectives and experiences. The pressure is huge for 20-somethings graduates to go out and see the world. But it is fine not to, not every one of your friends travel and what matters most is the friendship.