Have you ever thought about becoming a wandering traveler? Just you, and a minimum of clothing and things, traveling the US or Europe or another favorite country or continent? You may not need anyone to convince you of the joys of travel, but just in case you have to explain to someone else why you’re going to take to the road, here’s some help.
No Planned Itinerary
When you go on a 2-week vacation, your time is probably pretty well planned out so that you don’t waste any valuable minutes figuring out what to do next.
With long-term travel, however, you don’t schedule every minute. You probably don’t even set up an itinerary of places to visit and how long to stay in each one.
What freedom! You have some vague plans, but nothing that can’t be changed at the last minute when new friends invite you to join their family for the Diwali festival in their home town near Delhi.
You Will Learn About Yourself
Once again, time is your friend. Not being hindered by schedules, you’ll discover more about yourself and whoever you’re traveling with.
You might be surprised to find out that you’re actually a morning person. Back at home, you complained about having to get up early five days a week to get to work on time.
But now that you could sleep late whenever you want, you’ve found that you enjoy the mornings. You get up without an alarm clock and head out to see all the locals getting their daily supplies from the vegetable market.
That’s just one example of what you might find out about yourself when you’re away from the routine and expectations of family, friends, and co-workers at home.
Increased Activity During Travels
If your job at home involved working in an office, you may have made sure to go to a gym a few times a week. Or perhaps you had bought exercise equipment for use in your home. And you may have hated every minute.
When traveling, you’ll find less need to go out of your way to get exercise. Unless you’re trekking in the Himalayas, your activities may not be aerobic, but you’ll certainly be doing far less sitting in front of a computer.
Instead, you’ll be out walking around the places you visit and getting more low intensity exercise. You’ve probably heard the advice to walk briskly 30 minutes a day for health benefits.
Well, you’ll probably be walking far more than 30 minutes. It may not be brisk walking, but it will definitely be intense enough to give you many of those health benefits.
Learning to Thrive on Uncertainty
At home, your days were probably pretty predictable. When you’re on extended travel, your days will often be anything but predictable. At first, the uncertainty might unnerve you a bit.
One day, though, when someone asks you to commit to a week end getaway a few weeks in the future, you might realize that you don’t want to decide about that so far in advance and you suggest waiting until closer to the date.
Then you sit down and wonder why you hesitated. In the past, you would have had a whole list of events that you’d committed to. Now, you want to keep your options open and set your own pace.
You are creating your own adventure, with the cooperation of your traveling partner.
Making New Friends
As you move around from place to place, you will have the opportunity to make new friends – both locals and other travelers. Some of these friendships won’t last. You might forget each other as soon as you’ve headed to a new destination.
But you’re likely to meet at least a few people that you immediately bond with. They could end up being friends for life, even though you won’t be near each other. Technology has made long distance friendships a wonderful possibility. And your horizons will have been permanently widened.
