-Travel Fatigue And How To Cure It-
07 Dec 2019 By James/ LOST SOULS AND PIONEERS.
This blog will talk all about travel fatigue and how to cure it. Firstly it can ruin the best of trips and drain the enthusiasm from even the most overly positive and upbeat of travellers. You’ve spent months planning and looking forward to your travels, yet only a few months down the line you start to question what you’re doing, and new feelings start to emerge, most commonly the homesickness kicks in.
So, what is travel fatigue?
You may have come across travel fatigue but not really realised it as an actual thing. When it hits, you know about it and I would be confident in saying this is something that happens to even the most hard-core vagabonds.
Here are some examples that you may relate to, to help understand what travel fatigue is. We ourselves started experiencing travel fatigue 5 months into our travels.
- The food was no longer appealing – Bored of eating local food and losing interest in trying new foods.
- We became fed up and lethargic – Life on the road felt a lot tougher and we began missing home more than usual.
- The enthusiasm was beginning to slip away – We were becoming less interested in seeing and doing new things. Another amazing temple? “Pfft, I’ve seen many amazing ones, so this won’t be worth it” type of attitude.
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The constant moving around– Every few days becomes too much; becoming less and less appealing and we started to question what we were doing and what we wanted from our travels. Or even if we were doing the right thing to continue traveling.
- No longer care about the budget – Blowing money on things to help you feel better. E.g nice hotels and lots of comfort food.
Scarlett on a night train bunk in India
Our experience
Several factors played into our emotions, Christmas had not long passed, and we were approaching 5 months on the road through various climates and counties. We had recently arrived in India, which is very full on. It didn’t help the situation as the noisy, busy and chaotic cities are not the easiest places to travel even with passion running high. Everything got to us and we began to feel “travel fatigue” and knew we needed to do something different or make a change.
So, what did we do? How do you recharge your batteries and reignite the fire?
Here are some options and what we did!
We went through several options like many of you also probably have and we considered the option of going home for a visit or permanently. However, we quickly decided after all the effort we went through to make it all happen that we would not give up without trying all other options first (the day we truly stop enjoying travel is the day we will head home for good).
Here are some options to hopefully help you through this difficult phase of travel.
- You can decide to change things up – Try a new country or new place? This is an option but could be costly to leave the country and return. For us it was not an option. We didn’t want to waste money on flights and waste our visa. So, what else huh?
- Take a break – from moving around to recharge your batteries. Find a great place and stay there a while.This works for a lot of people, but it also means spending money and staying in the same place.
- Splash out – You could treat yourself to some new clothes, hair cut or a fancy hotel away from the dorm rooms. A good few nights sleep and some home comforts will go along way to getting back on track.
- Return home – If your completely over it and feel you have nothing left to carry on traveling then there is no shame in going home early. After all, you left home to travel and be happy what is the point if you are simply not enjoying it. For us, we knew we wanted to continue.
- Call home – This will either improve your mood or make you feel worse. It alone will not usually get you over the mental fatigue.
- WORKAWAY – what we believe to be the best cure for travel fatigue. You will either be unaware of this or won’t have considered as a cure.
If you have not heard of Workaway then go to https://www.workaway.info/ and read on to find out what it was to do with travel fatigue and how to cure it…..
So, what did we do? How do you recharge your batteries and reignite the fire?
Here are some options and what we did!
We went through several options like many of you also probably have and we considered the option of going home for a visit or permanently. However, we quickly decided after all the effort we went through to make it all happen that we would not give up without trying all other options first (the day we truly stop enjoying travel is the day we will head home for good).
Here are some options to hopefully help you through this difficult phase of travel.
- You can decide to change things up – Try a new country or new place? This is an option but could be costly to leave the country and return. For us it was not an option. We didn’t want to waste money on flights and waste our visa. So, what else huh?
- Take a break – from moving around to recharge your batteries. Find a great place and stay there a while.This works for a lot of people, but it also means spending money and staying in the same place.
- Splash out – You could treat yourself to some new clothes, hair cut or a fancy hotel away from the dorm rooms. A good few nights sleep and some home comforts will go along way to getting back on track.
- Return home – If your completely over it and feel you have nothing left to carry on traveling then there is no shame in going home early. After all, you left home to travel and be happy what is the point if you are simply not enjoying it. For us, we knew we wanted to continue.
- Call home – This will either improve your mood or make you feel worse. It alone will not usually get you over the mental fatigue.
- WORKAWAY – what we believe to be the best cure for travel fatigue. You will either be unaware of this or won’t have considered as a cure.
If you have not heard of Workaway then go to https://www.workaway.info/ and read on …
James holding the husky at our workaway
What is Workaway?
I cannot recommend Workway enough. It is a platform that allows hosts to find people like me and you who are willing to work a few hours a day in exchange for food and accommodation.
You will find placements in so many countries with a variety of jobs from helping at a hostel to caring for animals. It costs a set fee to sign up for the year but then you are free to find yourself a work away. Often you “work” 5 hours a day 5 days a week but a lot of hosts are flexible and the reasons for them hosting will vary.
Our Work away
We found an incredible Workaway at a small adventure park in a beautiful hill station town in India. The place was completely off the tourist trail and we felt like part of the family. We helped wash husky dogs, mend the activity equipment, help with the guests and even teach the kids cheerleading and help with their school work.
Do check references
I would recommend researching your host carefully and checking the reviews to ensure you know what you are signing up for so to speak. When applying to a host you should treat it as a job interview. What makes you right for the Workaway you wish to attend?
Read the description in what they are looking for and reply commenting with what skills and contributions you can provide to them.
Why / how did it help the travel fatigue?
Well it really worked like magic for us and pretty much fixed all the symptoms we had.
- Stay put for a while! How amazing does that sound? You will be delighted to not have to pack your bags every few days and jump on another sweaty bus or overnight train. And it costs nothing.
- We were happy to feel like part of a family. It really helps with feeling homesick if you get a good host family.
- Doing something different – Not only does it allow you to change your routine and daily activities you may end up doing something you had never thought about doing.
- Regular routine and breaking the traveling cycle of constantly being on the move helps you to find your feet again and rebalance yourself.
- Often it means more time and freedom to exercise – Which is good for physical and mental well being.
- Using your brain in a more structured and pratical way – Rather than just thinking about what to do next or where to stay.
- Learning more about the country and culture – This is a great oppotunity to get to really know a country. Often you will live like a local and truly get an understanding of the people.
Honestly our Workaway was one of the best experiences we had. To us it felt like we have overcome the travel fatigue and discovered a way to cure it. We even went backto our workaway again to see the family and say goodbye properly before leaving India. We got lucky with an amazing family and work experience. It really left us feeling refreshed and ready to get back on the road again.
We are Scarlett and James from a small town in the UK and currently exploring this big world together and trying to find a cure to the travel bug we caught on our last adventure to Australia and South East Asia.
We met in our home town and after being together 1 month we set off on our first adventure. It would either work or it wouldn’t, right? And here we are today five years later and back at it again.
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