I have read a few reports where the people concerned were unusually honest and admitted they gave up because of psychological issues; they found the various stresses of life on the road too difficult to bear. But I agree they're rare. Most of the time we're fed an endless diet of rose tinted, soft focus and eternal sunshine stories about obscure but fascinating landscapes, quaint but bizarre inhabitants and obstacles overcome with a positive attitude. I've written enough of them myself to know how the story goes.

They're all Voyage and Return tales - number four on the 'there's only seven plots' list I have in front of me (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots ) Failure doesn't fit into that narrative; it's number six on the list - tragedy, and who wants to write that about themselves. I've tried writing a story along those lines as well and, believe me, nobody wants to read it. In fact the usual reaction is to say you need to get professional help As the saying goes 'laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone'.

Usually when you go to the extent of upsetting your routine to the point of abandoning it the reason is somewhere on the spectrum between 'finding yourself' and 'losing yourself'. I've set off on trips with each of those as the driving force and 'losing myself' has never worked terribly well. You can run away from everything other than your troubles and when your mind is actually focussed on something else the bumps in the road that come with travel can seem more like mountains than molehills. No wonder people give up.

The psychology of travel does seem to be a bit of a desert with very little growing in it. For example there's sections here for all sorts of mundane stuff but discussing what underpins it all - the reasons, motivations, fears etc for travel - is pretty much ignored. At times it all feels a little like some of the high pressure sales conferences I've been to over the years where people are whipped up into a collective frenzy to achieve success but failure is ostracised into your own personal inadequacy. I've got a Zoom meeting shortly that will use some of those techniques - welcome to the warm fuzz of achievement vs stand in the corner of your own failure (not sales, my wife does Slimming World )

Maybe we should have some more stories of trips that didn't go well - not 'Overcoming the Monster' ones (No 1 on the seven stories list) but why I gave up through boredom, fear, anxiety etc. Anyone want to kick it off?