Surviving the matrix
 

I'm currently stuck-in Europe, in a 9-5 job-and I find myself wondering, how do people deal with it? Or is it just me?

I caught the RTW on moto virus a couple years back in South America and I'm pretty sure it's not going away any time soon (or most likely, ever). I've decided that I want to do Africa next, came back to England, got a job, started saving $$$ for the next trip...and feel like I'm going insane!!

I find most regular peeps mad-voluntarily confining themselves in their houses and apartments and cars and jobs, and shopping centres and pubs, voluntarily tying themselves down with debt/mortgages, voluntarily giving up their freedom to explore, voluntarily agreeing to this zombie-like sheeple state where hashtags and Facebook posts have become more real than the world around.. And of course most regular peeps find me completely insane for wanting to just get on my bike and ride around Africa.

I have a hard time with all this conformity and uniformity, I have a hard time taking my job seriously because I honestly think it's an absolute waste of my or any other human being's time, I have a hard time sticking to the exact hours of 'work', I am horrified that every single day, I waste 9 hours of my life involved in an utterly pointless activity; I miss travelling so bad it almost physically hurts sometimes; now and again I catch myself desperately looking for the Cruz del Sur in the night skies; I miss camping in the wild, I miss the open road, I miss the freedom and I am just not sure how long can I take this.

So...is it just me having a bad case of travel withdrawal or is there anyone out there experiencing the same? How do you cope with it?

I couldn't agree more and use the word hate a lot! I try to cope by losing myself amongst these posts. I too have considered Africa, but when is anybodies guess.


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I could have written that word-for-word, apart from my job being utterly pointless. I would say that mine is about 80% pointless.

Personally, the only thing that keeps me going is writing up my previous trips (mostly a 4.5 year drive around Asia), and using all my holidays in one hit to get a 7 week trip each year. Currently I'm overhauling a second expedition vehicle, and planning my Aug - Oct trip. It's also nice to see the funds accruing again. Plus somewhere on the not-so-distant horizon, the next 'big' trip of ca. 2-3 years around Africa...

Keep focused, set goals and meet them. Don't be suckered off into the mundane word by all those zombies around you!

Seeing I'm not alone in this, I feel like starting a support group for RTW riders currently stuck in England:) having a ride and/or a beer with people in a similar situation would be awesome!! Because another problem I'm facing is fellow bikers who...well, who don't really have a clue what I'm on about; most riders in my area are either sportsbike maniacs or people who only ride on weekends/in good weather and do about 10 miles to the nearest cafe or pub where they can all park their new shiny bikes and show off and the furthest they've ever been on two wheels is Costa in Stratford upon Avon. These are also the same people who love telling me how Africa is super scary, super dangerous, extremely rough and that basically, I'm insane for wanting to ride there.

Result-I'm turning into an antisocial hermit who rides alone and drinks alone most of the time:(

Sounds like a career change should be in the plan?? You have good diversity of skills and international experience. Perhaps consider what it is you LIKE doing, where and how you want to spend your time? What's inspiring? What pays enough to survive on?

Think of things you could do that would keep you on the road at least part time, use your skills to make travel perpetual. Lots of ways to approach this. No, NOT easy, it's a real job just to set something like this up, not for everyone,
involves risk.

Here's a brief thumbnail sketch of what I did to avoid the insanity of daily life in workaday USA.

Started traveling in the early 70's .. no real plan. Film School drop out. Basically goofing off. Became addicted to the road. We had a 350 Jawa stuck on our camper, had always ridden and quickly realized a MOTO was THE WAY to go. But lots happened before bikes took over center stage.

Started an import business from Mexico and Guatemala. Later expanded this into S. America. (mostly Ecuador). I never got rich but was able to extend my traveling and have a bit leftover.

While in Ushuaia I got very lucky. Met crew members working on a US govt. Research boat. Back in the states I applied for a job. One of the guys "greased the skids" for me ... and I was hired (a real miracle). I spent the next 3 years working in Antarctica, going back and forth from Antarctic peninsula to Ushuaia, flying with the Brits, Argentines and Chileans. My Spanish helped there. I had few skills or experience doing anything. After Antarctica, spent another year roaming around S. America.

I had refocused goals by this point, returned to USA, went back to school.
Useless. But while there (film school) I lucked out again, met a guy who offered work as a Sound assistant. Quit school, went to work. I liked working on films and TV. Different scene every day, different locations constantly. Almost like traveling. I joined the Union, got into Union politics.

Got into documentaries, which PAID me to travel. Africa, Asia, EU, USA. Worked for several NGO's round the world. UNICEF, World Vision, Carter Foundation. Did riding and traveling in between jobs. Lots of crap TV and features, but paid the bills. I could have done worse. :D

Now semi retired, only doing small moto trips, but still want to explore. India on the list. I've been, but only working, very short visits.

Lots more details/stories that could fill pages, but that's basically it. I know all too well how tough it is to break free. Hang in there, tough it out. Then make your move. All the best!
bier

A similar thread from a little while ago is at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...pression-55495

Travel?
 

Evergreen, two inspirational quotes come to mind:

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

and I cannot claim the second, but either could I find anyone else to attribute it to:

"To see the world, just open your eyes"

xfiltrate

That's a really good thread! (I'd never read it!) I also noticed it's in a forum we don't hear much about:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-the-big-trip/

Some good stuff there!
:D

That kind of stuff has gone on since time immemorial. In my own early days experience we were told again and again that what we were doing was suicidal and we'd never come back from our overland trip to ... Greece. I've noticed that some of the empty beaches we camped on there have since been "developed" into fly and flop package tour destinations and suddenly they're not so suicidal after all. It's mostly uninformed rubbish peddled by people with no personal knowledge and no desire to stretch their own horizons.

In the case of Africa there is just enough in the way of cultural, environmental and physical differences from European or North American norms for the warnings to have some basis in fact, but as is the way with much information from the uninformed, it's hyperbolically supercharged beyond all justification. My experience of the parts of Africa I've been to is that they are different enough to be exactly the reason I wanted to go there.

If you're travelling on your own schedule and following your own interests you can assess your progress as you go. If you feel uncomfortable about where you've ended up then you're free to move on. It's not as if you're being paid to report from a war zone or work in a plague outbreak or anything. That's the freedom that financing the trip yourself gives you. And that, of course, is the core of the problem. Without sufficient money to be independent some of the choices you'll (almost inevitably) have to make may go beyond what you're prepared to do. As a European in most of Africa the expectation will be that you have more money than you know what to do with (and a number of the locals will do their best to redress the balance!).

You should also ask yourself how essential the bike is to your plans. In the case of West Africa, I've ridden round it and I've backpacked around it and the two experiences were completely different. Backpacking does get you far closer to the essence of the culture - you're forced to interact with people on their terms (and depend on them to a certain degree) far more than you have to when you're "self contained". The downside is that it can become very tiring mentally if your personality type means you're hyper alert all the time.

Reading Mollydog's brief biography a few posts back had me musing on whether there's some kind of commonality of "spirit" amongst people who would seriously consider a bike RTW. Since I started travelling (first serious bike trip was in 1970) I've constantly felt the pull of distant horizons but regarded it as an indulgence to be controlled rather than an ambition to be achieved. As such I've fitted trips in around a "normal" life but even then I can look back and see three occasions in particular when time spent travelling has had permanent deleterious consequences upon my return. I suspect that unless you've found some way to make travelling your life / career (books, films, lecturing, that kind of thing) there's always going to be losses to balance the gains.

Mollydog, wow what an amazing story! Yes, a career change is definitely in order for me; I'm working on it, but in the meantime...

Backofbeyond, wonderfully put! Couldn't have said it better. I have often questioned whether moto RTW is, as you've so brilliantly expressed, an indulgence to be controlled rather than an ambition to be achieved, and I've come to the conclusion it's the latter for me. I think it's not just the fascination with the world, but also a kind of fascination about myself and what I'm capable of when I'm on the road.

I'm generally lazy, and when in the matrix, nobody and nothing will make me get up early on my day off, I don't work out because I hate gyms, I usually don't have the energy or the wish to socialize, and I'm generally not very fond of people; in the matrix, I'm just sort of hibernating, not really interested in what's going on around me, not impressed by much, not wishing to get involved in anything much except books, and the company of a very few close friends.

On the road though, suddenly I'm getting up at the crack of dawn, riding off road all day, and still have the energy to hike up a mountain or a jungle trail; after doing 300km on some dirt track I'm still perfectly fine to pitch my tent and cook my dinner, and then go share beers and stories with fellow travellers till morning; I quickly learn a local language and mix with the locals as much as I can; I will do anything to help out a fellow rider (or anybody stranded on the road for that matter), I volunteer at local communities; on the road, suddenly I'm wide awake, alert, and aware of the beauty of nature and people around me, on the road, I'm soaking up everything and I'm curious and inspired and amazed, I'm much more open, I'm bursting with energy...on the road, I'm alive.

So it's not just that the world is incredible and worth seeing, and not just that I'm crazy about bikes-it's also that the road makes me a better human being in so many ways.

Therefore it seems to me that the only logical solution for me is to just stick to the road then, instead of living like a hamster in a cage.

Yes all those symptoms are familiar. After my 1st long overland trip (one year) it was almost like physical pain. :helpsmilie:

I experienced this again when returning from Mongolia but much more severely, strangely enough, after a 10 days ride with Russians friends in the Altai, last summer. Severe “withdrawal” symptoms.

The only way for me to stay sane, and overcome this, is work on my blog and trip report, sort out my photos, prepare photo albums of my trip… and most importantly, work on preparing my next trip.

Getting rid of as much as possible is very liberating. Work, save and keep focused on that day where you get off in your bike, free with the world ahead of you!
Once you avoid falling into the trap of endless debt to “keep up with the Joneses” you stop being a wage slave and you will find your way to freedom… eventually.

Every crushing, soul-destroying day, at work, I try to remain focused. Yes I work hard and deliver on my projects, but I don’t lose sense of why I am there: the money! And like everyone in this forum, I find very hard to find people I can relate to. If I talk about my travels to someone, the first question is if I go alone. As I say that I travel with my husband, I can see that light in their eyes, kind of I am bragging, as surely, I am only the ”little wifey following her husband in his dreams” ,as I have been told before! That feels like a slap in the face! :tank: :death:

The fact that I am the driving force in our couple, regarding motorcycle travelling, that I organise everything and put considerable effort into this, that I chose and ride my own bike, just adds even more insult to those views. Even if we meet bikers, often they will only talk to the husband, I seem to be invisible, some sort of bike accessory. Including while we are travelling! :hammer:

So I don’t talk about my trips much, what’s the point? I have few bikers friends like us, and that helps too.

SO it gets better eventually but wanderlust never goes away. I am planning a trip for this summer (3 months across Russia and central Asia) but I am also thinking about the next one. Without all those projects I would go mad. Keep planning!

I read a lot of travel books and keep a map of the world close at hand. The wanderlust never subsides. Just don't get caught up in accumulating crap that distracts you from your goals.

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My Matrix is the UK. Can't really put my finger on why. But I do not like being there in the run of the mill life. Yet on the other hand I am proud of being a Yorkshireman. It doesn't matter where I am going and what I am going to do, but when I leave the UK I am quite elated but when I am coming back its exactly the opposite. Thats probably why I spend as much time abroad as possible :thumbup1:
If it wasn't for my mother I don't think I would ever go back

Wayne

I have told Grant many times that he has to put a warning label on this site that reads....

"Warning Overland Touring is Highly Addictive and there is NO KNOW CURE"

:D

sorry could not resist..
I am the OP on the link Chris posted....
But seriously you are not a lone.. and I am also sorry but the joke above is not a joke.. I have been back for 5 years, even started a shop based on overland touring.. and every day i get on my bike and it is a fight to turn right towards the shop and not left towards the unknown....

I completely understand you mate. Having to work a day job and no social life at all is driving me crazy too. Pay the bills, work, catch a movie, grab a pint - rinse and repeat. After travelling even for a little bit, that stale life annoys the shit out of me. I hope you can endure until you go on your RTW mate.