The struggles of moving around too many times

I have had many people telling me that they envy my lifestyle and wish they could travel as much as I do. They would love to do “what I do”. But what do I do exactly? Of all the things that I put the effort in, only ten per cent is public and available online. Sure it is fun and everything else in between, but travelling, the way I do it, can also be nerve-racking, stressful, tiring and much more.

My kind of travel

I do not travel just for the sake of it, I travel mostly to learn something and to give myself the chance to live in different places around the world. I’ve visited a dozen countries in the world but I also lived in half of those. I like being a tourist but what I particularly enjoy is to live in the country, learn the language, customs, traditions and other habits of local people. If I choose to go to Spain for a couple of days in the summer, for example, I am not learning anything about the country or the city I will be staying in because probably the purpose of the trip is just to swim and sunbath: basically relaxing rather sightseeing. Do you get the idea?

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This is also a stressful lifestyle though, let me tell you. In the past year or so I moved something like five or six times. Half of those were not planned and were not entirely my decision, but I did have to do it and it has been one of the most stressful things I have ever done. For a while, I felt powerless and unstable. Not having a place for myself to call home gave me headaches. Which is why I think I will have to try to find a balance between moving completely to one place and being a tourist from now on.

Here's how I afford to travel

I love travelling but I am far from being rich, even if people who do not know me have different opinions. I travel super low budget. I am up for travelling fourteen hours with a bus overnight if that means to save money rather than taking a two hours flight. I also slept in airports, used vouchers for hotels, prepared lunch at home most times so that I would not have to go to a restaurant and use up all my money.

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My point is that I am aware of the amount of money I have and how much of that I can or cannot spend. I just prioritise some things instead of others. I am also not the kind of person that goes to the club often, basically never, because I know that I do not enjoy being surrounded by people whose only purpose is to throw up at the end on the night. That is what I find expensive, not travelling. Entrance fee in a club, on top of all the drinks people order during the course of only one night is something that I never understood. I have never been keen on spending twenty or thirty euros all at once unless we are talking about a nice meal with friends or themed night.

That said, people can also find a balance. You do not necessarily have to decide between having fun and travelling, you can do both, but you will have to sacrifice some. Do less of both but do both, it is that simple.

Even though I had to move around so many times in the past few months, I do not regret the decisions I have taken and in fact, sometimes, the way back is actually the most difficult part of an impervious trip.

Every single time we decide to go somewhere, we take risks. We acknowledge the fact that anything can happen. You can miss your bus, it can start raining, you could have been scammed and have nowhere to go, you realize the course you took at University doesn’t fit you, anything. Anything at all can happen. But you manage to go through all of that. You hop on another bus, you finally have a place you can call home, and change the field of studies. You manage to turn things around and finally say that you actually enjoy where you are. Months pass by and instead of surviving and fixing things, you are building connections and your own portfolio. You finally feel successful, but... it’s time to go.

Arriving was probably hard, but leaving is harder. Most of the times it is, isn’t it? Everything you’ve built you have to bring with you elsewhere. It’s mentally stressful. It saddens you. But you will find a way to go through those emotions just like you managed to settle in in the first place.

- Cristian

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