Go Anyway: Lessons I Learned From Three Months of Backpacking
Last year, I finally made a long term dream a reality: after scrimping and saving for months, I took the plunge, packed up my flat, handed in my resignation, and headed on my first long-term backpacking trip. At a modest three months, this wasn’t the travel odyssey that most people seem to embark upon, but a quarter of the year felt like the perfect amount of time to dip my toe in and see a good chunk of South East Asia. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see everything, but that certainly didn’t stop me from trying.
When I first started planning, I did what most people do now: I opened up my socials and started to get inspired. Within the space of a few weeks, I had a vast folder of ‘must-see’ spots, hidden gems, and maps full of pinned food spots. The age of the travel content creator has made getting a feel for a country or what your trip could look like far more straightforward and instantly accessible than ever before, but it didn’t take long for me to realise that the reality of travel often looks pretty different to the way it does online, and that relying on social media alone to plan your trip is not the way to go. And while one of the joys of travel is to go along and experience everything for yourself and see where the adventure takes you, there are a few lessons I learned the hard way, and a few pieces of advice I wished I’d had before I left. So, I’m sharing them with you.
One of the main things that I learned quite quickly is that you need to exercise caution and critical thinking when using social media to plan a trip. The simple fact is that people who are making content for social platforms will often only show positive aspects, fabricate elements of their experience, or gloss over any negatives, and just generally ‘over-hype’ things, places, and experiences. Why? I suppose for the same reason we don’t all post the lows as well as the highs of our lives on our own profiles. But this makes it all too easy to fall into a trap of assuming what you see is trustworthy, and free of any drawbacks. It’s not to say that whatever experience they’re having isn’t worth doing, it’s just that you need to be aware that you may not be getting the full picture. So my best piece of advice here would be to back up your ‘visual’ research with written research. Reading online articles and guidebooks can be good for this, but I’ve found Reddit to be an extremely useful resource to get a clearer idea of a place, or to be able to evaluate if something is really worth doing for you.
Speaking of what’s worth doing, unless you have infinite time, energy and cash, you need to think about what you actually enjoy doing, and prioritise those things. Travelling is a wonderful opportunity to expand your horizons, try new things, and take a step (or two) outside of your comfort zone. It’s all part of what makes it so exciting; but don’t do something just because it’s what everyone else is doing, or because you feel like it’s ‘what you do’ in that location. Do your research, and if it doesn’t sound like something you’re actually going to enjoy, there’s no need to feel guilty for giving it a miss. It’s your trip - there are no rules. Build it how you want it.
In a similar vein, there will always be people who say a place you decided to skip will be ‘the best place they went’. Conversely, there will be places you loved that people will think were ‘overrated’. Loads of factors can influence what you enjoy versus other people but, that’s the joy of life! We all have different opinions. The point is not to let what someone else says or thinks be gospel.
You will make mistakes, but unless that mistake involves any risk to your personal safety (or belongings), it’s honestly not a big deal. Looking back on my travels, if I really think about it, maybe there are things I would change: maybe I shouldn’t have spent so long in that location, maybe I should’ve spent longer elsewhere, maybe I should’ve flown instead of taking the bus. But we don’t have the gift of hindsight, and ultimately, these ‘mistakes’ are how you learn and figure out how you like to travel, and they help inform the rest of your trip (and the next one). It’s all part of the process! And I truly don’t have any genuine regrets about any of the choices I made on my travels, so it’s really not worth agonising over.
Build. In. Rest days! I can’t stress this enough. On my trip to South East Asia, I went for 3 months and wanted to see as much as physically possible, and had an ambitious itinerary with something planned for more or less every single day. I’d never done longer term travel, and I figured 3 months was quite a short time period to see the number of places I wanted to, so I needed to maximise time at every location. It sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t really realise I’d need to account for down time. Sure, I had some beach days here and there, but I hadn’t planned any ‘nothing’ days at all, and around about the 2 month mark I got hit with travel burn out, and found myself frantically googling to see if this was normal. I wish I’d known before I went to allow time to just rest, reset, and do nothing! The burnout made it very hard to get back into a rhythm, and this impacted my ability to truly engage with, process and take in the amazing locations I was moving through. So if you’re planning a longer trip, learn from my mistakes: build in decompression time, and perhaps be more conservative about how many days you allocate to each location. It’s far better to travel slowly and experience fewer locations with more energy and in greater detail, than race through loads of places for the sake of feeling like you’ve been.
One thing that always seems to put people off from travelling, is the sense that there is only one way to travel. But please don’t be afraid to do it your way. Don’t rule yourself out of experiencing new places because you don’t think you fit the image of a ‘traveller’. Don’t like the idea of hostels? That’s okay, you can stay in hotels. Want to travel but don’t like the idea of being away for months at a time? That’s okay, go for a week. Want to meet new people, but don’t (or don’t want to) drink? That’s okay, there are absolutely ways to connect that are alcohol-free. I think there can be a real overwhelming sense that there is a way to do travelling ‘properly’, and that that has to involve months on end of backpacking on a shoestring, staying in a new hostel every other night, and feeling that you’ve had an experience that has totally altered who you are as a person. And if that’s the way you want to do it, or the experience you’ve had, more power to you. But travel is still travel, no matter how you choose to do it. For years I would talk myself out of taking the leap and planning trips because I didn’t feel like I fit the criteria of a classic, stereotypical traveller, and I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy that style of travel (or perhaps even felt a bit too old for it). But actually planning the trip and experiencing it first hand, this couldn’t be further from the truth. You will meet all different types of travellers from different backgrounds and age groups, and everyone is doing their trip their own way. From accommodation, activities, transport, route, budgets, everyone is doing it completely differently.
Having the means and ability to actually be able to plan a trip like this, or to even be able to travel at all, is a huge privilege, and one I will never take for granted. I know that not everyone has access to travel for a multitude of reasons, so this final piece of advice is not intended to sound flippant or ignorant to those barriers.
But, if you do have travel as one of your goals or ambitions, and you have the means, this may be my biggest piece of advice yet: go anyway. Whatever the little voice in your head might be telling you, please ignore it. If this is something you’ve always wanted to do, and you have the urge to visit a place, please don’t wait around or talk yourself out of it. Go scared. Go alone. I promise that once you’re there, you’ll realise there wasn’t really anything to be afraid of. Things that sounded so intimidating will actually be so simple. There’s an absolute wealth of resources out there to help you plan for every eventuality, and a global community there to offer you advice.
There will always be so many reasons to not do something, but the feeling you get when you finally make that trip you’ve always dreamed of a reality is unparalleled. I encourage you to let this be the year that you make your travel dreams a reality.
Written by Katherine Keir
