Welcome to the Travel Forums


Why join TravelBlog?

  • Membership is Free and Easy
  • Your travel questions answered in minutes!
  • Become part of the friendliest online travel community.
Join Now! Join TravelBlog* today and meet thousands of friendly travelers. Don't wait! Join today and make your adventures even more enjoyable.

* Blogging is not required to participate in the forums
Advertisement


Am I changed or spoiled after traveling for a long time?

Advertisement
Since my last blog has finished 6 months ago I still can't get used to life back home.
12 years ago, February 17th 2012 No: 1 Msg: #151960  
Hello.

My girlfriend and I traveled for 16 months trough Asia, Australia north and Latin America. This has been the most beautiful time of my life so far. Being back home is a little different than that, I have everything I had before and even more (nice apartment).

Anka and I are doing great but I miss everything that I did not own while traveling, for example:

I miss the hectic city life and the people, the colorful markets. The people that sing in busses or just read the bible to you. The green of the tropics. The music, the cheap food. At this moment I am helping people suffering from drug addiction, most of them just don't give a f*ck. And then I start thinking to myself that there are poor people who need help in a surrounding that I miss a lot now, the places we've seen while traveling.

I am wondering if more people sharing this feeling, I'm not depressed I just feel a lot better in another environment, or am I just spoiled with freedom etc. etc.

Thank you!
[Edited: 2012 Feb 18 21:19 - Jo Trouble:16935 - Moved from Support to General forum.]
Reply to this

12 years ago, February 17th 2012 No: 2 Msg: #151965  
Can I relate to this! I don't get depressed living in Australia, but everything is too ordered and too familiar for me to sustain any prolonged level of excitement or interest.

Travel for me is wonderous as every day brings new places to explore and new experiences to savour. It can be tough and challenging too, but that is both invigorating and exciting. Back in Australia, life is bland for me, but I lessen this boredom by writing my blogs, moderating on this site and preparing for my next journey - and it is this last one that keeps me most sane.
Reply to this

12 years ago, February 18th 2012 No: 3 Msg: #152016  
Roel sweetie - I hate to tell you - you've changed!
You've been bitten by the bug and there is a no cure...

Welcome to the world of the wanderlust people :D
Reply to this

12 years ago, February 18th 2012 No: 4 Msg: #152043  
B Posts: 11.5K
Yes, welcome to our world!

Travel changes people in ways they could never imagine before setting out.After having challenged yourself by being in unfamiliar surroundings, life back home can seem just too easy. You'll find the best way to survive being back in the life you lived before travel, is to plan for the next adventure.


"I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world"
- Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey Reply to this

12 years ago, February 19th 2012 No: 5 Msg: #152056  
The dilemma for those with the wanderlust in us. The best advise I can say is the material things in life just don't matter anymore after you have traveled the world as seen so many living "without". So save up where you can in your budget and get back out on the road. Hopefully for your sake you live in a country that gives you lots of vacation time.

Little weekend adventures can be fun or see if you can take your profession abroad somehow.

You are not alone that is for sure. Reply to this

12 years ago, February 20th 2012 No: 6 Msg: #152158  
well hello then fellow diseased people. I never heard of wanderlust before but since I googled it i found that I really do fit the profile. It's cool in a way that I know what's going on with me on the other hand I have a girlfriend who really means "the world"for me. Since we did traveled together I really feel like holding on to her forever, thing is that I really do got the disease and she's happy to be back home, she does say that she'll see what the future brings which is nice for me to hear. Think i'm gonna focus on devolpment work somewhere (indonesia, the philippines).

What's your story? how do you guys fit the wanderlust profile and how did it worked out, im really curious how thinks happend with other travelers.

Reply to this

12 years ago, February 20th 2012 No: 7 Msg: #152164  
Travel blog is indeed filled with many souls who suffer from wanderlust and we are in that group. There is no better education and way to gain an understand of what is important until you've spent a few months wandering around with little intention.

Dave used to sit and say.....I really like having the time to sit and think. To think about anything and yet nothing.

Each day in a new surrounding opens the door to a possible adventure, sights, sounds and smells that will fill your senses and memories.

Since our return in 2007 we have been unsettled. Two or three week trips to Turks and Caicos, France, Belgium, Italy, Mexico and Morocco have helped but we long for another extended trip. We are currently making those plans and hope by the end of the year to be executing that plan. Stay tuned for chapter two in feeding our wanderlust.

Hope to see you on the road.
Reply to this

12 years ago, February 21st 2012 No: 8 Msg: #152166  
We left the UK in 2006, got the wanderlust and became English teachers - meaning that we can live in different places, travel during holidays and move onto new places when we want to. Don't get us wrong, it's not all exotic and exciting - there's a lot of normal 'day to day' work and various annoyances within this that you wouldn't get back home - but we wouldn't change it. It definitely satisfies the wanderlust bug.

Reply to this

12 years ago, March 7th 2012 No: 9 Msg: #152899  
Hello Roel [😊}

I am wondering if more people sharing this feeling, I'm not depressed I just feel a lot better in another environment, or am I just spoiled with freedom etc. etc.


No, I dont think you are spoiled, especially if the trip you went on was your first. I was the same for around 5 years, after my first trip. Discovering the joys of travel is like falling in love. You just cant get enough of what you have fallen in love with for a while, and sometimes a long while, because it is so new and it may be filling up a space in your life that you did not previously know needed filling.

After a while, if you are like me, you will discover that though you love travel and cant imagine doing without it in your life, you will find you need and want other things just as much. In my case, after around 5 years of focussing most heavily on the travel aspect of my life, I started feeling a need for a boyfriend I wont have to leave in some far flung part of the world, a professional education, a job that would be based on the education I decided I wanted to have, and a child. For you, the combination of needs you will discover you want to add to your travel need(presuming you have been good and bitten by the bug, so the bite lasts a lifetime) will be different to mine. You already seem to have the relationship, education and job. There will be something else or somethings else that you will some day see somebody else with, and think 'I fancy that and where can I get it?', and then you will find it and have it too and love it like you love travel because it is part of what you have chosen to be.

Mel Reply to this

12 years ago, March 16th 2012 No: 10 Msg: #153292  
Hello fellow traveller! So I had to google Wonderlust since I've never heard that before! It fits right in! Just saying, When I first had a taste of travelling 3 years ago, I caught the travelbug disease... since then I couldn't stop dreaming of seeing the world... every year I have a vision of what to do and where to go. It changed me indeed, other than changing the amount of money left in my account, it changed my outlook in life. It's like being born again, being free... Travelling makes you see things in a broader perspective... you become worldly and sensitive to what we thought was bizarre at first just to realize it's part of a normal culture...

I also agree on what other travellers say that you start to realize how little do you really need to survive as other people around the globe only have little yet have a thousand smiles... Reply to this

12 years ago, March 17th 2012 No: 11 Msg: #153337  
There are different kinds of people in the world. Some have a need to collect things---- cars, houses, toys. There are other people who collect experiences-- travels, meeting new people, cultures and experiencing new places.

I guess as long as you are happy it does not matter which direction you head. Reply to this

12 years ago, March 17th 2012 No: 12 Msg: #153342  

There are different kinds of people in the world. Some have a need to collect things---- cars, houses, toys. There are other people who collect experiences-- travels, meeting new people, cultures and experiencing new places.


Great observation! It is obvious that most of the people on this site fall into the latter category 😉 Reply to this

12 years ago, March 17th 2012 No: 13 Msg: #153348  
B Posts: 11.5K

In response to: Msg #153337

Definitely agree.

Everyone wants to be successful in life, but success is relative and subjective.
Even within the World of Wanderlust' we have different travelling styles :-) Reply to this

Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 10; qc: 14; dbt: 0.0136s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1mb