Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony LEE
Work for 40 years and then spend 20 traveling.
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I think many fear it'll end up as work for 40 years and then spend 20 travelling to the local hospital and back.
If only life were simple and we could just fire up the bike and head off without money (or any other) worries. Wouldn't we all do it? Well, no, I don't think the vast majority of people would. Maybe those of us frequenting this site might be closer to doing it than most but how many here have gone off with an open ended commitment to life on the road - without any secondary consideration such as write a book, reassess my life, rite of passage / prove a point etc. Even if you've gone RTW (as a number have) you eventually end up back at your starting point (in all senses).
I suppose that as the longest trip I've done is about three months I'm not really qualified to judge anyone's desire to travel endlessly as a lifestyle choice but I've been at those junctions a few times over the last four or five decades. I could do it right now if I chose. I probably have enough money to sustain myself for years, particularly if it was out of high cost areas like the EU / US. My wife and I have looked at a number of lifestyle change alternatives that we could afford to do, with travel being one of them. The reason it probably won't happen is not for practical reasons but because when you dig a little deeper there's (for us anyway) a fundamental flaw at the heart of hedonistic travel.
You have to ask yourself why am I, or would I do this? "Because I enjoy it" isn't really good enough as an answer because what happens when you stop enjoying it - and, if you travel for long enough, you will eventually stop enjoying it. It'll become routine. The adrenaline fuelled uncertainty of some bribe laden 3rd world border will just become another depressing rip-off, the colourful locals you meet in a waterfront bar will be just another bunch of half wit chancers and the endless sun that seemed so desirable when you left the UK will start you wondering about those new brown marks on your shoulders. Paradise will turn out to have feet of clay. If a travelling lifestyle is the answer to your current situation what will you do when it, in its turn, becomes the problem.
Expanding on that will have to wait until some future point as my lifestyle today is telling me I have other things to do, deadlines to meet etc. And that of course, in a somewhat nihilistic way, ( ) is where we came in ...
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