There are people in the world who love to travel and do travel but there are also people who think they love to travel but always make up excuses as to why they don’t travel. Those excuse can range anywhere from being afraid of getting sick to them saying that they can’t afford it… Traveling is a great way to see the world and if people choose to not see the world that they think they love, then that’s their problem.
People have so many misconceptions about traveling… the main misconception is that it’s expensive. Do you know that there are people in this world who say they don’t travel because you have to be rich to travel? That’s the most bizarre excuse ever, especially to backpackers. Backpackers are people who travel the world and live their life based on the items they have in their backpacks, so for those who say traveling is too expensive, they better not say that in front of a backpacker!
The Backpacking Lifestyle
As a backpacker, you learn how to make travel a lifestyle, essentially. You learn how to live with less and still remain happy. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to survive one day as a backpacker… and that’s okay… backpacking is a lifestyle not meant for everybody. But there are a few life lessons that backpacking will teach you.
You may not be able to see it while you’re currently backpacking… actually, you won’t be able to realize these things until you’ve returned home and taken a break from backpacking. It’s your life after backpacking where you’ll really begin to appreciate the life skills you’ve learned during your adventures.
Life After Backpacking
You Become Self-Reliant
When you adopt the life of backpacking, you learn to become reliant on no one else but yourself and you take that ethic with you long after you’ve taken a break from backpacking. A lot of the times, once you come back home from backpacking, you’ll need to start back working. With the component of being self-reliant, a lot of backpackers find it to work for themselves during their time off from backpacking.
You will find that working for yourself gives you the freedom to work on your own time and the flexibility to work as often or as little as you want. Opening up your own online business is a great way for a backpacker to make money because if you backpack long enough, you pick up certain trades and skills that you can turn into products to sell and those items you sell will probably be unique to the market. The great thing about that is uniqueness sells quick. People will jump at the chance to buy something that no one else will have!
You Become a Master of Money
Becoming a master of money, in this scenario, is more so being able to live in a society where there are so many luxuries available to you but you realize just how much you don’t need those materialistic things. Your mindset is this: you’ve lived as a backpacker for so long and was able to survive without those luxuries that you’ve come home to… so why would you spend unnecessary money on things that you’ve lived without for so long.
It truly teaches you what’s important and what’s not. Now some people who lived backpacking lifestyles will take a break and come back home indulging themselves in all the luxuries they took for granted for so long. The only bad thing about indulging in those luxuries is that if you plan to backpack again, and this break is only temporary, it can make your return back to backpacking very hard. But you do come back knowing how to better handle money.
You Pick Up Odd Quirks
For one, your friends and family already thought you were a weirdo when told them that you were going to leave the country to live your life as a backpacker. Now that you’re back on a break from your journeys, you come off as even more weird to them now! The funny part of this is that these special “quirks” you pick up aren’t weird to you or anyone else you’ve met during your travels… it’s not until you come back home that you realize you might be a little weird now.
The Odd Quirks
- Whenever you engage in conversation, your contribution to the conversation always starts with “oh yes, that reminds me of the time I went to…”
- You have no idea who the latest music artists are.
- You realize that you have a true hatred of television.
- You wear flip flops or hiking boots in any type of weather.
- You start conversations with “have you ever been to….?”
- All you wear is tribal print.
- When your friends and family speak of you, they always end it with “if you’re even in the country.”
So, these are just a few of the odd quirks you will pick up during your backpacking adventures and bring home with you, making everyone think you’re weird… and that’s totally okay… It’s your quirks that make you special. In fact, Forbes.com states that there are certain quirks that people have that actually set themselves up for success. So embrace your quirks and love the weird side of you!
Your Sense of Self Has Totally Changed
This might sound contradictory of what travel is supposed to do for people but it’s true… almost to a fault. It’s been said that travel, especially solo travel, is a way for a person to experience self-discovery. Well, for some people, travel doesn’t help them see who they are but it instead helps them see who they thought they were and realize who they truly are.
All the things that you thought you loved and the things you thought mattered, you now no longer love or matter. Backpacking helps you see who you really are and once you come home on a break from backpacking, your home becomes your reality check and shows you the person you thought you wanted to be. It’s pretty amazing what time alone can do for a person. It forces you to re-evaluate yourself, your life, and the people in your life.
