Travel bloggers appear to be taking over the internet. Everyone is talking about global travel and it seems that #wanderlust has been trending for years. Instagram and Facebook are flooded with pictures of tanned travelers sipping cocktails in bikinis while lounging on white sand beaches with captions like, “Just another Monday afternoon!” But is it really all sunshine and daiquiris? Or is there another side to global travel? Read on to learn what no one tells you about global travel.
It can be the hardest thing you will ever do
If you think deciding how many shoes to pack is hard, just wait until you get off the plane. Global travel is full of unexpected challenges. You are going to be farther from home than you’ve ever been surrounded by people who don’t speak your language and don’t share your cultural practice. You learn so much from adapting to this change, but when you are thrown into a foreign world, it can take a while to find your feet.
Depending where you travel to, you might not have hot water or you might be served unidentifiable foods. If you are doing a global service project, you will be exposed to ways of life you probably never even considered before. By the end of your global travel you will have a wealth of new experiences and you will be a stronger, more worldly person. But first you have to go through the hard part: adapting, learning, and letting yourself change. For most of us change doesn’t come easy, but once we allow it, it’s the best thing we could ever ask for.
You will never quite recover from it
When you come home from global travel, things don’t go back to the way they were. You see everything with a new perspective and consider everything in respect to what you witnessed abroad. Whether it’s a six-month solo adventure or a one-week wellness retreat, you are going to come home changed. And before long, you are going to want to leave again.
There’s a reason ‘wanderlust’ became a trending term. The travel bug is a real infliction that you are bound to bring home with you. If you are expecting your global travel to be a one-time thing, don’t. But that’s what makes it so great. You get through the challenges and it makes you appreciate the things you have at home, but it also makes you realize how capable you are. It teaches you things. And before long you are addicted to places you’ve never seen.
It is also more spectacular than you ever imagined
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but global travel is worth a million. And there’s no number of blogs you can read or Instagram accounts you can follow that will express just how incredible global travel really is. For that, you need to go for yourself. Because beyond the challenges, beyond the cocktails on the beach, and beyond the travel bug, there’s a certain something that waits for you on the other side of the world.
It doesn’t matter who you are or where you travel to, but when you enter the world of global travel you learn something about yourself. You learn about the world and your place in it. And you come home with a fuller heart and a more complete soul. So if the challenges of global travel scare you, just remember this: it is always worth it.
