When I started traveling in February 2011 my life changed radically. Time on the road can be compared to childhood. Every day I experience a new place, meet new people, eat food I have never eaten before and listen to various types of music. It is beautiful to have such a diverse lifestyle but at the same time also exhausting and draining. It does not matter how you travel but you always depended to a certain extent on other people. Things don’t always work out the way you want them to and time slows down or speeds up very rapidly at times.
If you are traveling your lows are much lower and your highs are much higher. Unfortunately your happiness curve is in average lower than when you have a stable life, however, you can feed off the highlights throughout the lows and look forward to the next high. Travelling can be a fantastic experience but it is very important that you do not overdo it. If you are non-stop on the road starting from a couple of days till about 1,5 years you might have enough strength to fully enjoy it. However, the longer your journey the more difficult it is to live with the countless inconveniences traveling brings along. You will probably get more impatient with people and will not be able to enjoy certain aspects of traveling as you did before. I, however, could not live without traveling anymore. It gives me strengths and I feel privileged to be able to do what I do. I used to do Ironman triathlon before I hit the road. This sport can be grueling and tough and it certainly isn’t the most pleasurable thing to do. It is the exact same thing with traveling. But afterward, you are proud of the accomplishments you have archived and the experience you have gained.