I believe that there is nothing easier for a person than to make excuses for not doing something that takes us out of the known. We even become creative professionals when it comes to saying no and inventing a good excuse. As Les Luthiers say: “when there is no will, there are a thousand excuses”.
However, the vast majority of people like to travel and dream of going on a great trip. So why make so many excuses for us to do it? mono I have to go back 4 years, to that stage before I chose this nomadic lifestyle. We too were afraid.
We also suffer a crisis and think about our future and our family. We even do it every day we move. And about this I want to clarify something: many will believe that traveling means spending all day here and there, doing things, not stopping, not missing a single place. But when traveling becomes your lifestyle, then you need to calm down, you need to enjoy a little more each thing you do, each place you visit, each person you meet. Therefore, it is interesting to take a deep breath and not drown in the desire to want to do everything.
Today I appreciate having been a bit capricious with the idea and not getting carried away by the excuses that my own mind made.
But we are not the only ones, that’s for sure, we have detected that many people want to travel, some for fashion, others because they are really interested in going out into the world, others to learn or change their lifestyle. But often many people tell us that they are dying to do something similar to what we do, however, we hear excuses that, although they are realities of each one’s life, in reality, they are still excuses.
We tell you about the 10 most common excuses we have heard and we give you 2 reasons for each one to face them and go on an adventure.
#I don’t have money
The winner of all excuses and not only for not traveling but for almost all the things we want to do and don’t dare or simply don’t want to carry them out.
We are going to reveal a secret to you: we don’t have that much money either.
And then they will ask themselves… how do they travel? And to dive? Do they sometimes sail on top?
At first, we managed to earn enough by working in our country to pay for a one-way ticket and be able to survive a couple of months without having to work. We applied for work visas abroad, we worked in the fields, in the forests, at sea, we did everything that came our way.
But, since work visas are not eternal and it was not our intention to settle forever in another country, we decided to continue our journey and had to think of new ideas to be able to continue moving and working along the way.
We began to pay attention and we saw what opportunities were crossing our path.
Over time, we learned some traveling tactics to stay on track. We discovered that traveling was very cheap and that without much effort you can maintain a budget of no more than 5 to 10 usd per day (between the two of you) in many countries of the world. We must also confess that there are days when we hardly spend any money, but… how is that possible? We asked other experienced travelers, tapped into our knowledge and resources, and learned to live fairly.
We rediscover barter and take advantage of it, everyone needs something that we can give them. For example: taking care of a hostel or a house, baby sisters, cleaning, teaching language, photography, web or graphic design, administration, trades, our time, etc etc. The range of services opens up, and we realize that we can do things that are simple or everyday for us and that are very useful to other people. We are travelers who believe that working is good and even more so when we undertake such a long trip.
Through saving one can also spread out on the road, we can practice Couchsurfing, where we not only save by sleeping for free in local people’s houses, but also gain contacts and experiences. Also, we can hitchhike to reduce transportation costs. We use this means to travel within countries, between states and cities, but there are many examples of travelers who strictly also move from country to country by this means.
In the interest of being able to continue traveling the world, one stops paying attention to money and automatically, in some way or another, it begins to last longer. When this happens, in an inexplicable way, situations begin to occur on their own and our account stops decreasing rapidly.
Local people are very well disposed towards travelers, and in our experience, they have always been the ones who have given us the opportunity to continue traveling.
It is not about depriving yourself of everything, but about balancing our desire to travel against luxuries and comforts. In the end we ended up enjoying both. The trip gives you little by little everything that we thought we were not going to be able to do. It’s just about trusting until the last minute that everything will turn out well and enjoying what we’re doing.
There are people who spend less and others more, that depends on each one’s choice, the daily budget does not make us better or worse travelers.
* Out of necessity you begin to discover new types of jobs that you didn’t know existed.
* You develop a new sense that allows you to see opportunities that previously went unnoticed.
#I have many commitments and responsibilities
At this point we exclude all kinds of sentimental or spiritual commitment. We only refer to those goods that hold us to the place where we are: home, work, business, car, etc.
It is true, we have to be responsible for all our belongings and that is the most delicate point: How much do we really need to live? Some will say… “well, I know that, but I already have the things and now what do I do with all that? What do I do with my work? What do I do with my business? They are realities and we can’t just be irresponsible and abandon everything, can we? If we have it today, it is because at some point in our past we made the decision to have it and accept the commitment that this entails.
But at that time we were a person that we are not today. We must accept the transformation, forgive ourselves, give ourselves room to retract. What they will say is no longer our problem, we cannot conform to the whole world. The road of life is long and people change.
We have to allow ourselves to change in order to evolve. Being a responsible person is also about leaving everything in order so that you can leave it little by little. If we set a date to travel based on some factor that we can manage, then we can know when we have to leave everything ready. For example, if we know that we need 1 year to raise X amount of money, then maybe a few months earlier we can put our car up for sale, quit our job or find someone to replace us, drop our rent or change the structure of our company to allow us to run the business away from home.
This situation would be ideal, however, few are the ones who actually do something like this. In general, anxiety leads us to think that it is something that we can only do now and never again in our lives. Then comes the desire to leave everything suddenly and go. Planning and research should be part of our journey as well. Like us, others will surely reach the limit in their lives where they say… «I don’t want to know anything more about the life I lead.» Perfect.
For them I can tell you only one thing: If you are able to accept your decision then leave everything, go out into the world, look for yourself, find yourself, learn, accept, be happy. But if we plan a little more, things will go much easier than we think.
Society teaches us that we have to follow an established structure that gives order to life: study, work, get married, have children and retire. It is not bad to have an order in life, on the contrary, but it would be better for each of us to be able to choose the one that corresponds to us.
The world is full of opportunities for everyone. It’s just a matter of getting excited. If we were ever able to run a business, what makes us think that in the future we won’t be able to do it again or anywhere else? Material things are always possible to recover. When we are on the road they will become something that we no longer cling to as before, they will become what they are, things.
* We will learn to prioritize our experience and knowledge before the material.
* Just as the rider guides his horse, he also trusts him. Thus we will learn to plan our trip but trust where the road takes us.
#I have children
“What you do can only be done without children” or “take advantage of doing it now that you don’t have children”. Let’s make something clear before we talk about this: we don’t have them, so we won’t talk about this from experience. But on our trip we have met many people who do have them or have had them during the trip and yet they have not considered it an excuse to stop traveling.
This has been one of the things that has surprised us the most on our way and you can imagine that when we meet these types of people, we fill them with questions. Thanks to them, we have changed our perspective and they have taught us that if one day we want to have children and continue traveling as we do, it is possible.
Since we can’t talk about it from experience, let’s leave those who can. That is why we want to mention those who are just some of the examples that exist traveling as a family: The Zapp family, Los Ponso, Los Giusiano and the friends of Magia en el Camino.
* We will learn about the new distance education.
* Our children will benefit from the virtues that are gained by traveling
#I worry about what will become of my future.
What future? The future does not exist yet and we cannot worry now about what will come because we do not know what the future of life holds for us. In a certain way we can believe that we are the ones who control our life, our destiny and our future, but unfortunately I am afraid to tell you that we are not the ones who control our future, but rather, we only control our present. In fact, I don’t think we control anything, but we’re not going to go into philosophical detail. Let’s go back to ourselves and our present.
In that case we just have to take care of doing what we have to do today and put our attention only in the now. With this we do not mean that you do not study or do not have aspirations or that you do not plan. On the contrary. As we said before, planning is something of the present, however, worrying about what is planned is living in the future.
We all need a plan to live according to something, but let us leave what we do not control in the hands of our destiny and begin to be today what we truly are. If we want to be professionals, then let’s study to learn and not to pass an exam. If we want to travel the world, then let’s travel and let our destiny take care of the details, because at the end of the day, if it has to happen, it’s going to happen anyway.
Thinking that when we return to our country no one is going to want to hire us, because we are «outdated» or because they are going to believe that I am a bum who spent 2 years touring the world, is not something that we have to worry about. You will solve that on the way back, if it ever happens, since perhaps along the way you will discover your true profession or end up working in another country. Perhaps today you are a lawyer and who tells you tomorrow you will be a circus trapeze artist, why not? Of why not? is what life is about.
* We will have more time to find ourselves.
* We will stop worrying so much about the future to deal more with the present.
#I have a disability that prevents me from doing it.
We have to be delicate with this point; but neither do we believe that it is something that prevents travel. Sometimes having a disability complicates things a bit, it may be more difficult for us to do this or that, but like everything complicated, when you achieve it, you get double the satisfaction, you get motivation, confidence, and you are encouraged to do more. It gets out of that vicious circle of «victim» that feeds back with phrases like «poor me, what will become of me, I’m special, etc.»
Lauri had an accident a few years ago that kept her in intensive care for a month. Upon waking up from what she was going through, she found herself without her spleen and from that moment on she would be immunocompromised for her entire life. This means that she has a weaker than normal immune system. She, every couple of months, having a fever due to flu or gastroenteritis or other daily illnesses, had to be hospitalized for three days with antibiotics. Any small infection could become big in her body.
W hen making the decision about the trip, we thought we were going to have to leave out many destinations, especially India. Her infectologist specialist in travel, Dr. Verbanaz, prepared her for each destination without frightening her, he is the one with whom she keeps in contact via email if she has any questions. Along the way we discover that sometimes one cares more than one should (and we return to the previous point).
We realized, at least in her case, that by respecting basic sanitary measures and taking care of herself a little more than anyone else would, she would be fine. By being out in nature more, and no longer being cooped up in an office, where viruses spread between co-workers, she was less exposed to illness. Thus, in these two years of travel, we are grateful that she has never had to set foot in the hospital. Again, we can only control (and to a certain extent) our present, we can only take care of doing what is necessary today so that nothing bad happens tomorrow.
Here are some examples of people with illnesses or disabilities who have moved on and traveled the world:
Derek, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and went out to travel the world on his bicycle (story told by our friends at Marcando el Polo).
The story of Albert Casals, an 18-year-old Catalan who travels the world alone in a wheelchair.
* Traveling de-stresses us which helps us to increase our defenses and improve our state of health.
* We leave the environment where we are cared for more than we really need and we value our own body and health.
#The world is very dangerous
It is likely that if we read the news or watch TV every day (especially Hollywood movies) we believe that the world is full of terrorism, animals that want to eat us, spy agents that spy on us in bathrooms of airports and drug trafficking. But let me ask you something. Doesn’t the news window to the world show you extraordinary things that are happening in your city and you didn’t even know about it? Or worse… how many bad things happen around your house or on your way to work and of which you can become a victim? however, you do not stop going to your work. Definitely, if we were thinking that something could happen to us at every moment, we would not live and we would not even eat tomato.
The world, your country, your city, your neighborhood, your very home is full of “dangers” and it is more likely that something will happen to you in one of those places that you “know” than traveling around. Traveling brings you closer to the real world and therefore, in a certain way, takes away the sense of insecurity and fear. Also, we’re talking about traveling, not becoming suicidal.
In these years that we have been traveling we understood that we were more insecure living the life we lived in Argentina than the life we chose. That is why we recommend that you do not be afraid of the «insecurity of the world» that the media continually sells. It is usually more about the internal insecurity that we have to face something new than the physical risk that exists out there.
We never tire of repeating that one of the things that has surprised us the most when traveling was the hospitality of the local people, and how without knowing us they have always taken care of us and have opened the doors of their homes.
Things happen in the world, some bad, but many others good, the question is… How can we improve the world if we don’t know the truth of what is out there?
Traveling distances are shortened, the world becomes small, and the one who used to be «the Chinese» «the Argentine» «the German» after traveling, become a citizen of the world and not just of a country. A person with different customs, but like you, like me, like everyone.
* We can check reality with our own eyes.
* We get rid of the prejudices generated by the media and society.
#I couldn’t be away from home that long.
A very common condition for those who have always lived in the same place and have never been separated from their closest ones for a long time, is the idea that one is going to miss all that environment and the people who accompanied him all his life.
The truth is that one misses their customs and their loved ones, but it is also about overcoming attachment. People like objects often become reasons why we don’t dare to make changes in our lives.
Yesterday we learned the story of a girl who was about to start her trip, and she canceled her plans when she heard this question from her father “’Are you going to leave me alone?’ He asks at first sight to the totally cracking heart. And the question we ask ourselves is what do we do? What do we do when attachment is a problem? There are 2 options: leave and accept the consequences or stay but knowing that we are responsible for such a choice, so we cannot say that nobody forced us to do it or create fights. In some situations it happens that we have no choice. In that case, we can only accept the current situation without any kind of resentment or sadness, since opportunities will always be within our reach if that is what we want. Life always gives us revenge.
The best way to overcome this fear, we insist, is not to think so much about our past, or about what the future is going to be. If we live in the present, the past disappears and attachment can be overcome. As much as we were born in a family or in a neighborhood, we have to know that we are independent beings who must follow our own path and make decisions for ourselves, as each one does in their lives. This is how your parents and ancestors did it so that today you are sitting reading this note.
Learning to detach makes us realize that people go on with their lives when we leave, or so they learn to do so. It is not only a teaching for oneself, but for those around us.
If you still think that you are going to miss it, because attachment is something that we still haven’t fully overcome, today there are hundreds of options to keep in touch with our family and friends. Some tools: Skype, Facebook, mail, etc.
* Learning to detach helps us to be freer. We realize that the world keeps turning without us.
* Not only do we learn not to cling to others, but our environment also learns not to.
#I don’t have a travel companion
Before we met, each of us already had the idea of going around the world in mind. Although we had little experience traveling alone, we were determined to do it. There is a phrase that says: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. Having a travel companion can help us a lot when making decisions and the emotional burden can be made more bearable. Traveling between companions, some things can be easier and others more difficult. But not everything is color of roses. A travel companion discovers it on the trip. Just like a good study or work partner.
We can’t know if she’s the right person until we see her in action. We know many people who tell us «I’m looking for a partner and I’m going on a trip», that can sometimes have consequences. If we do not know how the person with whom we are going to travel behaves, having a companion can mean a burden and even an inconvenience. It can also happen that our partner never arrives and we have to go out alone, in fact, it is what happens most often. If we don’t find that match, no problem! We are not the only ones traveling in this world, there are both women and men traveling alone out there and we will surely find someone on the road.
In addition, traveling alone puts you to the test, it opens your mind, it forces you to communicate, to have more will for yourself and to get to know yourself. The times we have traveled alone we have had more positive experiences than negative ones. Don’t be afraid to travel alone. Generally traveling alone we have more chances that people will help us. Let’s use our imagination and put ourselves in the place of someone who sees a solo traveler, walking down the street with a big backpack and a map, looking lost, we will most likely help them. For example, Laura wanted to cross the border from Laos to Thailand by land first thing in the morning and by local transport, she had very little money, it was still night and some people wanted to overcharge her for being a tourist. Without looking for it, an old woman saw her, and without asking her permission, He took her by the hand and adopted her as his granddaughter for the next 3 hours. He not only accompanied her from Laos to Thailand, but she even paid him all of it.
Traveling alone is a unique experience and can open unexpected doors along the way.
* Traveling alone allows us to develop new skills.
* We learn about ourselves and to accept our partner.
#I’m not of age
This excuse is the funniest. “You take advantage because you are young and you can do it” some tell us. Others tell us, “someday I would like to make that trip but now is not the time” and very few have told us… “when I am older I would like to do it”. The concept of time or age is within us and it is a barrier, a conditioning that we put on ourselves so as not to do it at the moment.
In short, it is a demonstration of lack of courage and will. When we were young we had no money, but we had to work or study for our future. As we got older, we took on commitments and responsibilities that tie us to a place and/or people. When we wanted to see, we had children and grandchildren came and we are too old to make a trip like this. So when is the right time? Our answer is “Always”. Traveling is not something that happens once in a lifetime. Traveling happens when we act accordingly so that something happens, no matter how old we are.
You don’t have to drop everything to do it. We can start small, try. But no one is going to stop us at the airport and tell us… “Sir, you are over the age limit to travel, go back home” or “Miss, go back to your studies, you did not finish university, you cannot leave the country”. The good thing about traveling is that we are as old as we are, once we dare to do it later we realize that it is not so difficult and that it is within everyone’s reach.
For example: I did my first backpacking trip with my father to Bolivia and in a few months our parents will put on their backpacks and go backpacking with us. If this was your excuse then we tell you that you can now go out and travel in peace!!!
* Traveling we realize that the conditioning of age is created by oneself.
* Traveling adds experiences and learning that not even 100 years of life inside our house and the university can give us.
#The communication barrier scares me
We find it very funny to arrive in a country and have to be gesticulating or thinking about how to explain something to someone in signs. But it’s not always like this. Sign or picture language can be more helpful than any language. It is not necessary to explain to anyone that we are foreigners, in general, the locals already know it. And if in addition to that we have a map in hand, it is most likely that we are looking for a tourist place, a bus stop or a particular place.
If we want to eat something, we can point to the menu, to someone else’s plate or, something that occurred to us in China, was to take photos with the cell phone of the foods that we liked and then show them in the restaurants that we went to . Creativity is activated when it comes to communication! But it never hurts to learn a few words of the local language. Today the internet can help us find free tutorials in any language to learn how to say the basic words we need to be able to communicate.
Some of the positive (and sometimes negative) things about not knowing languages is that we don’t understand what people are talking to each other. We cannot find out if there is bad news, if they are complaining or saying something bad. Just in case, we always smile even if we don’t know if they are laughing at us or not.
Publication by Klando Va de Viaje.
* We further develop our senses.
* We learn to take with humor situations that previously seemed tragic.
#I don’t like to travel
Well in that case it’s simple because then it wouldn’t be an excuse not to travel but a well-founded reason. Many people have told us that traveling for them is a waste of time, that they don’t see the point of coming to a place to look at new cultures or landscapes or see something different and that they prefer their own neighborhood. This is like those who choose to get married, have children and a house. Nothing is right or wrong if we know what we are talking about. It’s just another kind of choice.
#A thousand excuses, no reason
When there are no more excuses, the super excuses come: My compass was flooded, a virus entered the GPS, my little finger hurts or I can’t find good trekking shoes.
One of the most used is “I am afraid”. Traveling for a long time is not the same as traveling for a short time, but it is not so different either. Being a world traveler is a great advantage and it opens doors for you that, being local, many times we do not see or simply do not have access to. There is no reason to be afraid other than ourselves and our mind, where the fear of failure is our only enemy.
Kindness, respect, humility and above all a smile can achieve magical things that if we paid for a tour, we could not obtain them. Detailed observation of the behavior around us is key. If we see how people normally greet each other and what the physical codes are between them, then we can integrate easier.
If we want to travel we only have one option: travel. Otherwise we can spend our lives waiting for the right moment to do it or the ideal partner. However, we are the only ones who can generate it.
travel without excuses
You know… if you want to travel: don’t worry so much about money, you will always find the right way, place and time. I chose a destination, set a date and put together a plan. If you have children, buy a backpack with a seat to carry them and a good sunscreen for them! Don’t look in the mirror or look at your birth certificate. Learn a few words of the language of the country you are going to visit and smile more often. Store the compass in a dry place. Talk to as many people as you can along the way. Experience a new experience every day. Use your common sense.
In the meantime, don’t regret not traveling, enjoy where you are, who you are with and planning your new adventure. Each stage has a different taste and it is part of life to be able to learn to enjoy each one.