Nothing is more stimulating or exciting than venturing to far-flung places that challenge and push you to experience the world in new ways. Traveling confers countless benefits, and when someone asks if they should go out and explore, my response is an emphatic “yes.” But when traveling, there are things that suck. Nothing is perfect and it is rarely a never-ending succession of euphoric moments in picturesque destinations.
Here are some of things that suck about traveling that I’ve learned the hard way.
The Good Doesn’t Always Come With You: You find something good and then you leave. Discover a great hole-in-the-wall restaurant? Too bad you can only eat there a couple times before you leave again. The same goes for people. You’re constantly leaving new friends. And many times, people aren’t able or willing to invest in getting to know you when you’re here today and gone tomorrow.
You Spend Most of Your Time Solving Stupid Problems: You aren’t solving world hunger – you’re trying to communicate to your non-English-speaking taxi driver, determine which restaurant is more sanitary relative to other available options, or haggling over 30 cents because you can’t bear the idea of paying the “foreigner price.” All of the things “just work” back home don’t here. Little daily distractions stack up and keep you from focusing on your bigger, more important, goals.
Diminishing Returns: Much can be said about problem-solving and the confidence from knowing that you’ll find a way to make things happen while you’re on the road. But there are diminishing returns for certain repetitive activities: booking accommodations, maneuvering incomprehensible and constantly changing red tape to renew your visa, researching your strategy to explore a new city, attempting to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak English, etc. Unfortunately, the principle of diminishing returns also applies to the once-exciting experiences when you travel. How many temples, museums, cathedrals, local markets, or even beautiful beaches can you see before they start to get a bit “samesie”?
Opportunity Costs: You can’t be everywhere and do everything. There is a real opportunity cost of being away, particularly when traveling for extended periods. What are you missing with the important people in your life? What could you be focusing on instead – your career, your relationships with friends and family?
Traveling Often Involves Risk: Traveling is not without risk. It took me an extra-bumpy flight on the same flight path in Indonesia as an AirAsia plane that had gone down a week before to realize this. Places aren’t always safe and you may not know a city well enough to accurately gauge the risk profile of the street you’re walking down. Additionally, when you “get away from it all” you also get away from things like world-class medical facilities.
Personal Detachment: You live in a detached manner, particularly during legs in which you’re traveling solo. I recently realized that for one 6-month stint of my travels that I hadn’t spent time with any one person for more than a couple days. I also never realized how much time zones impacted the ability to connect with people when you’re on opposite sides of your circadian rhythm. Consistently having to interact with and be around people is often the biggest culture shock when returning home.
It’s Tiring: Traveling is tiring, no way around it. It physically wears on you.
You’re Not Saving the Environment: I can’t claim that my lifestyle is in any way environmentally friendly, because of the air travel and the growing mountain of plastic water bottles that I’ve consumed over the years. (At this point, I could probably make a line of my old plastic water bottles all the way home from anywhere in the world.)
You Get What You Get: Most (read: nearly all) places don’t have the variety of cuisines that we’re accustomed to back home. While I deeply love local food, it’s often all that you get. Even in the best of foodie destinations, such as rural Tuscany, you’ll get amazing Italian food, that’s it. Good luck finding some decent sushi when you’re in Bolivia or rural India.
You Are THAT Person: As much as you may loathe them, too many times you are THAT tourist. You regularly feel like an idiot – you have no idea what you’re doing, where you’re going, how to ask anyone directions or how to order food other than pointing or using your obviously foreign-accented English.
Challenging to Be Accretive: When you’re constantly moving, you’re also constantly stuck on the superficial. How can you get to the true essence of a place in only a couple days? How can you build those little relationships with the daily people in your life – your baker, your hummus guy, the woman at your local chai stand? Similarly, it’s challenging to work on projects that are accretive, such as language acquisition. If you’re constantly moving, there will be constantly shifting accents and dialects, and it’s much more difficult to maintain a language tutor. Sometimes it’s better to go deep, stay in one place longer, and not try to stick as many flags in the ground as possible.
Constantly Confronting Things That Suck: There are problems in the world. There are things that suck that are completely outside of your control, that don’t have an immediately apparent solution, and you’re forced to confront them on a daily basis. Pollution, trash, poverty, lack of basic human rights, lack of a social safety net or access to basic healthcare, government policies that inhibit economic growth and job creation, cultural values that aren’t always tolerant of others, religious or sectarian conflict, or visa situations make it impossible for locals to travel or experience the world outside their borders.
It’s Not Always Glamorous: It’s hot, you’re sweaty, you’re in the back of a 50-year-old taxi in Mumbai breathing exhaust and stuck in traffic. Some (a lot) places are ugly, gross, unclean, noisy, polluted, dusty, and hot. Whether it’s the guy snoring next to you on the overnight train or when there aren’t any showers or running water in 75-mile radius in the remote border region of Mongolia, traveling off the beaten path is an awesome experience, but it’s not always glamorous.
With all of that said, I write this from La Paz, Bolivia. While traveling is not a panacea, it may not be the end game (but it could be), and there are plenty of things that suck, I’m still out on the road for a reason.
See Why I Travel.
