The Realities of Long-Term Travel: What the Gurus and Influencers Don't Tell You

It's just not a sexy thing to talk about.

Despite what the travel gurus and influencers tell you.

The travel lifestyle is an alluring one. Postcard pics from Koh Samui. Wild nights out in Barcelona and fleeting romances that come and go.

It’s fun for a while.

For me, it lasted ten years. Way longer than I planned. It was a lifestyle that became addictive.

“But it didn’t take me long for me to figure out what the reality is like.”

While you go off on this city and country-hopping lifestyle of good times, laughs and adventure, it comes at a sacrifice.

A sacrifice few long-term travellers talk about. It’s just not sexy enough.

Relationships, careers, family, and meaningful friendships are all sacrifices that you will HAVE to make while you live a life based on long-term travel. One or two of those sacrifices are manageable. I could handle one or two of them at a time. Even all four for a short period.

But all the time? Nah. It weighs heavy on you after a while and changes you as a person. It changes who you are.

And not necessarily in a good way.

I was single for 9 years and 6 months out of that 10 years (ballpark, people).

Now don’t get me wrong, that ain’t all bad. I dated lots of girls, I met some incredible people who, in another universe, I could have had a long-term future with.

But it just wasn’t on the agenda for me. Travel made me selfish in that sense.

I also missed funerals, weddings and lost childhood friendships too. The saying when you are ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is never more applicable to that of a traveller.

Even though you are sharing envious reels of you in the jungles of Asia or trying to grab a selfie with an elephant in Tanzania, life goes on everywhere else.

While you collect the likes and dopamine hits from social media, the vanity metrics are quickly forgotten.

In the moment, it’s great. I loved nothing more than being praised for going out there and ‘living my best life’ and people would hit me up for advice on how they could do the same. Damn, they still do, even though I’ve been reasonably quiet on the travel front the last few years.

You will probably get the same.

You become ‘the traveller’. The go-to person on everything from visas to cheap flights and on what country has the sexiest people.

It’s fun. But after a while you realise it doesn’t really matter.

We live in a world where the attention span required to view a 30-second reel is a challenge. People move on quickly and your story goes with it.

The secret to a fulfilling life of travel isn’t a straightforward one. But rather, a life of balance.

For ten years, I filled one cup completely. The cup called Adventure.

The trouble was, I left most of the others like career, relationships and family empty most of the time. And like anything left alone for a significant period, it doesn’t work anymore.

It won’t be hard to look online and find someone selling you the travel lifestyle dream through their dropshipping, blogging or affiliate marketing courses. You know the ones.

But here’s the reality check.

While the dream is out there, you will be in the significant minority if it works out for you, like those cheesy reels of good-looking people smiling on a beach in their ‘location-free’ travel lifestyle.

For most of us, it takes something a bit more realistic. The amount of location-free entrepreneurs out there is a tiny, tiny percentage of the labour market.

But you still can live a life where travel plays a big part of your life without falling for the BS dream that many sell.

Instead, you could:

• Have a proven career that earns you an income

• Using real-life skills or learned skills to establish a fixed income.

• Upskill yourself online or through academic institutions.

All three are attainable, and you can still travel the world having achieved those.

I look at the sexy world of travel now and see right through it. Anyone who has read my writing or opinion pieces will know what I mean.

It’s all BS.

And it’s not coming from a place of bitterness or jealousy. It’s from a place of reality, having lived it for as long as I did.

But it was only my reality.

I will be proven wrong by someone and can accept that. But the person I’m writing to today, chances are it’s something that you might want to consider.

I don’t know many travel bloggers or influencer types who have managed to take the ‘personal brand’ that is so desirable any longer than ten years. A short lifespan in the scheme of things.

The upsides of a life of travel are significant (and well-known).

Living a world of travel makes you a better person. Full-stop. It opens you up to a world of different values, lifestyles and makes you more empathetic.

No one I know who has travelled for a decent period of time has come back the same person. What you get exposed to is something you can’t learn on TV or in a class. What I learned leaving home at 19 on my own as a pimply virgin to travel the world just would not have happened if I followed the traditional path at home.

But by living the lifestyle for this long, the boring things that I gave up have come back to haunt me.

I came back at 30 years old and had no idea what to do with my life. I had picked up a heap of skills but didn’t know how to apply them.

Feelings of jealousy, envy and embarrassment would come over me when I had awkward conversations with peers my age who were so much further advanced than me when I got home.

Being interviewed by people years younger than me with stable careers and families while I had nothing more than a few items in a box as possessions.

It’s easy to be part of the minimalist crowd these days. It’s a popular crowd to be part of.

But in Western society, I call out anyone who is totally comfortable with it all the time. Sure, it’s easy to portray that, but as I was living in a shared house in Manchester, the feeling of just floating around the planet wasn’t one I was totally comfortable with.

It was just the lifestyle I knew.

In the end, I had no option but to start my ‘adult’ life as I call it, years later. That causes it’s own problems.

Not knowing what you want to do in life when you are in your thirties can be pretty scary. I still don’t in my forties. But, at least I have an idea now.

And a lifetime of travel memories to go with it.

But for the first time ever, I’m feeling settled. I’ve found some purpose. Travel will always play a part in my life. It will always be something I do at every opportunity.

But I’m glad I’m not the traveller of old. The traveller without a compass. The traveller who chased the next adrenaline hit.

Travel is the best thing anyone can do. But it is a double-edged sword. And needs to be talked about more.

The lifestyle is sexy AF, and the reality is the same. While you're in it anyway.

Just prepare yourself before you buy the dream.