The only thing that is keeping us sane is saving hard/planning for the next one.


Pete

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Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand 2016
Buenos Aires to NYC 2012-2013: www.facebook.com/curryhunt
India and back 2009-2010:

Aye... Thats pretty much how it works.

Keeping busy and trying to do all the good things "home" has to offer really helps too.

I really missed bacon sandwiches and good Tea when Im away so I always pig out on them when Im home.

Its the little things like that that help !

Ted

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

There is no escape. You'll never stop.... (at least I think I will never)

Well it has been a few weeks now since I wrote that first post, and it has been an up and down road. Thanks for the comments some really useful to me others not so much, but all appreciated. (except for the one who said i am over 40... i got a few years to get there yet )

The funniest part was I got a job and had the bike serviced (badly BTW) but 3 days with out my ride and I was going though withdrawals. Like a crack addict I was so very happy to get it back.

Most of my feeling are the same, I still cant go a day with out wanting to get on the bike and just go. I miss the travel more then I though I could, even the bad stuff is now bliss in my head (now i know that is insain). Having a job has kinda helped, but the job is not perfect and that part does not help at all. I spend my nights editing photos of the trip(s)and living in the past (which I know is bad) but the editing needs doing so it is a trap I cant escape. Besides i like it (the photography part).

I don’t think I will ever not be thinking about travailing and planning (or maybe scheming is a better word for it). I can say I have stabilised if not improved. I still find it hard to talk about my trip and don’t really spend anytime here, which I feel guilty for. So many people have help me with my trip and I don’t feel I have given enough back, but I am working on it. So thanks again and I’ll see you on the road.
Cheers
X

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2000 Africa Twin
http://two-up-ona-twin.blogspot.com

I hope things have improved for you the last year. I left Australia in 63 and travelled and worked for 5 years overseas, rode across Nth Africa, drove from London to Herat, sold the car and backpacked back to Australia. I arrived broke and had to work in the Northern Territory to pay my way back to Sydney, but the work in the NT opened up a new world of paid tourism that lasted for the next 30+years, I'm now approaching 70 and still thinking maybe I'm not too old to do it again. I hope you didn't resort to medication. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the cause. But the curse of having "travelled" will probably never leave you. You need to adjust to that.

Me and my friend call this the 'lassoo effect'... when you are on the road, everything makes sense. Your friends all look dumb for living in the grind and you feel like you are the smart one... free, rejuvenated, excited, stimulated - you have it all figured out. Then your rope runs out, you're cash runs dry, the good times stop rolling and come to a abrupt halt, you're lassoo'd back into the real world.

I guess the key is to be a millionaire eh? Or just suck it up. It's life eh. Wouldn't enjoy trips so much if you didn't have to work for them.

3 years around Africa, down west & up east coasts, arrived back in London a few weeks ago....

I always remember this quote from 1899:

"I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome , to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance."

(Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 1899)

I have heard, and this may just be heresay, but it makes sense. That NASA Astronauts suffered post mission depression in the early days. Basically what they were doing was the pinnacle of their career, what they had worked towards, and well, once you have been in Space, what more is there to achieve right??

So what they make the Astronauts do now is set post-mission goals. Because they need something to think about and focus on to ensure they don't drop into depression post mission.

I am about to finish my trip in a fortnight and am going home. I have written out a few different goals, creative, fitness and career goals that I am looking forward to getting stuck into - have even begun working on some of them.

It also helps for me that I made a big list years ago of all the things I wanted to do in my life, and travelling by motorcycle was only one of many, maybe make a similar list and consider the things you want to do in life that will make you happy, that are not on a motorbike. I am looking forward to going home, it isn't daunting.

To be honest though, if you were using your trip as a form of escapism to get out of a situation you were depressed in, you can't go back to that situation and then expect anything different. Eventually you are going to have to change that situation.

Anyway, in a couple of months I will let you know how I feel.

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www.thegreatgallivant.com - video blog of my current year long trip around Europe on the F650GS Twin

"I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome , to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance."

(Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 1899)[/QUOTE]

Oh ho I can relate to the above !

I have not had the pleasure of extended touring, I have managed 45 days at most. This year I managed 2 jaunts, 45 & 30 days. On returning home I experienced and still do to some extent exactly that which you have described. I have made the decision to sell everything I own and go touring permanently. It has improved my disposition although I'm still a little apprehensive. Marketing lot, stock and barrel is a mission to say the least.