Solo travel is something that scares a huge amount of people. Is it because we are nervous about who we’re going to meet? Is it nerves about running out of money half way through? Is it nerves due to doing something that we’ve never done before? Perhaps it’s the scariness of not knowing what is going to happen after? To be honest, it’s all of the above. There will always be a time when you will get nervous about travel. This is common; nervousness gives you the drive to do what you want to do in the first place. You should never try and cover those nerves with any other emotion. Think of this as nervous excitement. No amount of excitement will ever come without those little bits of nervousness.
For a lot of people wanting to go off on their first adventure; it’s the unknown that is scary. But the unknown happens throughout the whole of life, no? The unknown of becoming bored, ending up in a job which you don’t enjoy, living a life which you don’t enjoy. For a lot of people the want to go off travelling is a huge step and one which will teach you a huge amount in life.
For me travel gave me a lot of self-confidence, along with just general confidence. I feel like I can talk to anyone now without getting nervous about it, including strangers. I feel like I have learned a huge amount about the world, I know my geography has definitely improved for sure. I have learned about all the different cultures and communities, in different countries, which has given me a completely different outlook on life, when returning to my home country. The reason I say that is that we all grow up in a society now over the past few years which have led us to believe that we need a checklist for life. I guess this has come from our parents and their own lives. That you need to find the perfect partner, you need to own your own house, you need to have the perfect job (whether you love it or hate it) that’s going to pay the bills. That everyone needs to get the perfect car, that perfect pet and eventually get married and have a family. Travel gives you a different outlook on this, you don’t have to have all of these things to be happy and it certainly doesn’t make a lot of people happy. Travel leads you on a path where you don’t necessarily know where you’re going to end up, which is exactly the same for life. But it is made me realise that the only thing that I ever want to be is to be happy. And who knows, maybe that is making a lot of money, a house, a car or a family but whatever it may be; the last and only thing that matters is to be happy.
A lot of people don’t understand this when you get thrown into adult life. Travel gives you the opportunity to go and see people all over the world, who have so little in comparison to what we are given, but are happier with life in general. You can never quite get into the right mindset that there is so much more to life than just this same checklist. My current friends now are growing up and they’re ticking the boxes above, house, car, family. Their lives live on paycheck to paycheck just looking for the next big thing that’s going to happen; putting a tick in the next box on the list. Travel makes you see completely differently; it makes you see that everyone works in different ways. There are so many different things which make a person happy and it doesn’t just have to be the ‘norm’. Or what we class as the normal anyway.
Now don’t get me wrong, if you want to have this life, if having all of these things makes you happy then go right ahead. Go for it, don’t ever let anyone tell you that you should be doing life differently, because everyone works at a different pace. Everyone has a completely different path in life and the way that you live your life is the way that you live your life. That is the end of it, it is that simple. You just have to figure out yours and make sure that you’re asking yourself this. Is this everything that I want out of life? Have I achieved everything that I want? Am I happy right now? If you struggle to answer those questions, then you need a change. Change is scary, change makes you nervous but as said before it’s an excitement, which will always come with a nervousness.
If you have dreamed your whole life about travel but never done it due to any number of excuses, work or family? There are ways around this. A recommendation is the four hour work week book, give it a read and see what you think. If you remember anything from this blog it is this; make sure you remember to take your own life path and don’t let anyone else tell you where you have to go.
LEAH HANCOX 