Travel Reference
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find people who will come up and talk to you out of the blue. When people see me sitting alone in a hostel,
they walk up to me and ask if I'd like to join them. I was recently having a beer in Bangkok, and another
guest at my hostel came up to me and we struck up a conversation. Two of my best friends were met be-
cause I said hello in a guesthouse in Vietnam. I have attended the weddings of friends I met while asking
to join their Frisbee game on the beach. After a while, it becomes normal to strike up a conversation with a
complete stranger.
Travelers are friendly people who want to make friends. And one of those friends is you.
You Are Never Too Old
Budget travel, backpacking, round-the-world trips—these trips aren't just for the young. While I was in Po-
land, I met a sixty-five-year-old American in my hostel. He was traveling around Europe before heading to
India. And people were talking to him. He was sharing stories from his youth and drinking a few beers with
the younger backpackers. He was never an outcast. My friend once saw a man in his seventies making a big
trip around the world because, as he said, he didn't have much time left and wanted to see the world. It was
now or never. And he had a number of ailments and carried many prescriptions, but he still went.
I've seen families with their children on buses in Southeast Asia and retirees camping in Australia. The
point is that you are never too old to go. Some of my favorite encounters on the road have been with older
travelers, as they always have the best stories. Like they say, you are only as old as you feel.
You Can Always Come Back
If you make it three months into your trip and decide that long-term travel isn't for you, it's perfectly OK
to return home. I've met a few travelers who, months into their trip, realized that they really liked being at
home and missed it terribly. They missed their friends, family, and significant others. So they cut their trip
short and went home.
There's no shame in doing that. There's no such thing as failure in the world of travel. Your trip is your
own. You went away for yourself, not for other people. And, in the end, you only need worry about yourself.
Getting up and going is more than most people do, and if traveling isn't for you, at least you tried it. That in
itself is a major accomplishment. Whether you are gone for one day, one month, or one year, you still will
have learned and grown from your adventure.
If there is anything I've learned over the years, it's that these fears, like all fears, are unfounded, because
in the end, life works out. Your bills disappear when you cancel your cable, phone, and Internet.
Walking away was easy for me, but I understand that not everyone can just cut loose as quickly as I did.
Some of us have mortgages, parents to take care of, or children. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to
travel.
People think that once they have children, they can't travel. But every year, families set off to travel the
world. Having children didn't stop the James family. Craig and Dani James of thewidewideworld .com took
their two children on a yearlong trip around the world in 2008. As Dani (the mom) puts it, the James children
“would soon be on their way to adulthood. We were rapidly approaching our last chance to do something
really special together as a family—to do something that would impact the way we thought of ourselves,
individually and as a family.”
