Life is short — we have limited time to do the things that we really want to do. It’s also a voyage — or a sack of coins that are yours alone to spend. (Those are my metaphors for life, anyway.) And it’s supposed to be fun. For a lot of people, that means not waiting until retirement to travel but rather getting out there and exploring now.
If you want to travel now, but you’re scared to go it alone, you’ll be able to find excuses everywhere if you look for them. You’ll find ways to say you can’t do it right now: you’re not ready; your job, friends, or fears are holding you back; you have too many obligations.
Basically, these excuses mean you’ll never get on the road. Because at every stage of your life, you’ll be able to find a reason why it can’t work for you. It will never be the right time to travel — especially as a woman…
1.) …because you’ll always be asked when you’ll settle down…
A common question I get from people back home concerns when I’m going to “settle down.” Don’t I want a relationship and a family of my own? My question back to them is: Why is traveling and having a family mutually exclusive in this day and age? Families travel all the time, and some even full-time.
Of course, I have had to make choices, and there are sister lives that I didn’t live because I chose to travel. I won’t know what could have been with the handsome Frenchie, because I didn’t choose to stop being a travel writer and move in with him. It might have been nice, and naturally I can’t ever be sure that I made the best call, but I do know that sitting on the beach in Tanzania, writing this to you, is one of the happiest moments of my life, and that I have these moments all the time, because adventuring is what gives me life.
I used to think that if I wanted a relationship I’d have to give up this life of traveling. But since something in me always whispered “go,” I always left. It hurt me to my core, but I had to. Because Mr. Right will only have one thing to say to me, and that’s “May I join you?”
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