PRACTICAL WANDERLUST
Quitting my job to take off on a year-long trip was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and honestly, a total disaster. But I’ve never regretted it for a second. Here's what nobody told me about long-term travel.
You won’t tell anyone that you plan to quit your job and go travel on the off-chance that saying it out loud will somehow jinx it.
You’ll hold onto it like a prized secret. It will be all you think about, but you won’t tell anyone until it’s TOO LATE to back out: until tickets are purchased, hotels are booked, and it’s really real.
Your trip will be all you think about up until the second you leave.
You will be a singularly-minded machine of focus, planning, and obsession. Nothing else will even cross your radar.
Don’t try to plan a wedding while you’re planning to quit your job and travel.
This is a universally terrible idea and we highly advise against it. If you choose to plan both at the same time, one will definitely take priority.
The day you quit your job will be the most exciting & scary day of your life.
Followed shortly by the day you actually leave for the airport to start your travels. Months later, as a weathered, experienced traveler, you’ll back at that nervous, scared selfie you took at the airport and smile at how naive and carefree you were way back then.
The minute your plane actually lands, excitement will give way to immediate terror and regret.
The chaos of landing in a new place, trying to navigate from the airport, suddenly being immersed in a foreign language: the unfamiliarity of it all will overwhelm you.
You’ll start to crave & miss familiarity.
Turns out that when everything is new and unfamiliar, even your most mundane routines can creep up on you with this rose-colored Instagram filter where everything you used to do seems a lot more exciting than it actually was.