I've Caught the Travel Bug (And I Don't Want a Cure)

Why I keep looking for the next place to go, even when I’ve only just got home.

I think I first realised I really loved travelling when I was 14. It was 2014, and I remember that year quite clearly because I went on more holidays than I normally would. I went to Spain and Tunisia with my family, and I also went to France with school on a water sports trip. None of these were particularly adventurous trips, and I certainly wasn’t travelling independently at that age, but I remember getting to the end of the year and thinking what a great year I’d had. When I thought about why, I realised that a lot of my favourite memories from that year were because I’d been away somewhere.

I think that was probably when I caught the bug.

Growing up, we generally went on fairly typical family holidays. All-inclusive Spain was a regular, with the occasional trip somewhere different like Morocco or Turkey. My parents travelled a fair bit, and my mum has always been the one who really loves travelling, but it wasn’t something I was obsessed with as a child. I think my mum probably would have travelled much more if she’d had the opportunity, but she chose to wait until her children were grown up. Looking back, I suppose I didn’t realise quite how much travelling would become a part of my own life.

Proof That I've Always Been a Tourist (Tunis, 2014)

Now I find it difficult to stay at home for too long without wanting to go somewhere. I can come back from a trip and within a few days I’ll be thinking about the next one. Sometimes I haven’t even unpacked properly before I’m looking at flights. I’ve definitely had moments where I’ve thought that this can’t be entirely normal, but I also don’t really want to stop doing it.

I don’t think I’m travelling because I’m trying to escape my life. It’s more that I don’t particularly like the idea of a life that becomes too repetitive. I’ve never been someone who enjoys routine very much, and the idea of doing the same thing every day for years doesn’t appeal to me. The traditional Monday to Friday, 9-5 lifestyle isn’t necessarily bad, but I know I’d struggle if there was nothing else going on around it. I need things to look forward to, whether that’s a holiday, a weekend away, a camping trip or even just having something planned for the weekend. Travel just happens to be the thing that gives me the biggest sense of anticipation.

I love the feeling of knowing that I’ve got a trip coming up. I’ll spend far too much time looking at maps, researching places to stay and working out what I want to do when I’m there. I actually enjoy the planning almost as much as the trip itself sometimes. There’s something really exciting about having a date in the diary and knowing that, for a few days or weeks, your normal life is going to look completely different.

When I’m actually travelling, I feel free in a way that I don’t really feel anywhere else. Whatever is going on at home seems much less important when I’m somewhere completely new. I’m not thinking about work or the things I’ve been worrying about or what I need to do when I get home. I’m just experiencing what’s in front of me. I love the feeling of walking around somewhere I’ve never been before and knowing that everything I’m seeing is new to me. Even really ordinary things can feel interesting when you’re in a different country because you’re seeing them through completely different eyes.

I think that’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in culture. I love seeing how people live in different parts of the world and learning about the things that are important to them. Food, traditions, history, religion, language and even the little everyday things that we don’t think twice about can be completely different somewhere else. Travelling has made me realise that there isn’t really one correct way to live. What feels completely normal to me is only one version of normal, and there are so many other ways of doing things.

I also really like the unpredictability of travelling. At home, most days are fairly predictable. You know where you’re going, what you’re doing and roughly what the day is going to involve. When you’re travelling, you don’t always have that. You might meet someone who recommends somewhere you’ve never heard of, end up taking the wrong bus, change your plans because the weather is awful or spend an afternoon with people you only met that morning. Some of my favourite memories have come from things that weren’t planned at all.

That’s probably why I’ve gradually moved away from the type of holidays I enjoyed when I was younger. I used to love an all-inclusive hotel, but now the thought of spending a week in one makes me feel a little bit trapped. I want to actually experience the place I’ve travelled to. I’d much rather be out exploring, eating somewhere local or meeting people than sitting around a hotel pool for seven days.

My First Solo Trip (Oslo, 2021)

I also genuinely prefer travelling on a budget. I think I could win the lottery and still want to stay in a hostel and go on a group trip. Obviously I’d probably make some questionable financial decisions with the rest of the money, but I don’t think luxury would suddenly become the thing I wanted from travel. I really enjoy the social side of budget travel. There is something quite nice about arriving somewhere knowing nobody and then ending up having dinner with a group of people you’ve just met. Sometimes you stay in touch afterwards, and I think that’s one of the best things about travelling. You meet people you probably would never have crossed paths with in normal life simply because you’ve happened to end up in the same place at the same time.

There is also a part of travelling that I can’t deny is slightly superficial, which is the enjoyment of ticking countries off my list. I like seeing the number go up and looking at a map and seeing all the places I’ve been. There is definitely something satisfying about being able to say you’ve been somewhere new, and I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy it when someone is surprised by how many countries I’ve visited. But I think the older I’ve got, the less interested I’ve become in simply collecting countries. I’d much rather have a really memorable experience somewhere than visit a country just so I can say I’ve been there.

Travel has also changed me in ways that I don’t think I expected when I first started doing it. I was a very quiet person when I was younger and usually the quietest person in the room. I certainly wasn’t someone who would have volunteered to stand up and speak in front of a group of people. Travelling has forced me to become much more comfortable with putting myself out there. You have to talk to strangers, ask questions, work things out and sometimes deal with situations that aren’t going according to plan. The more you do those things, the less intimidating they become.

I’m much more confident now than I was when I was younger, and I think travelling has played a big part in that. It has also made me less materialistic. When I was a teenager, I probably cared much more about having nice things, whereas now I’d almost always choose an experience over something I can buy. If I have money spare, I’d rather put it towards another trip, a weekend away or something I’ll remember than something that will eventually end up forgotten in a cupboard.

Unfortunately, one of the downsides of loving travel as much as I do is that I get terrible post-travel blues. I find coming home quite difficult, especially after a really good trip. You go from having every day feel exciting and different to suddenly being back at work, doing the washing and getting on with normal life. I usually enjoy being home for about five minutes before I start thinking about where I could go next.

I’m not sure whether I’m addicted to travelling or just addicted to having something to look forward to. Probably a bit of both. I love having a trip booked because it gives me something to think about when everyday life feels a bit repetitive. Even when I’m not travelling, I like knowing that there’s another experience coming up.

I think that’s probably the biggest reason I travel so much. I don’t want to get to a point in my life where I look back and feel that I spent too much time waiting for the right moment to actually do things. There will always be a reason to wait. You might not have enough money, you might be busy with work, you might have other responsibilities or you might think you’ll have more time next year. But eventually there will always be another reason.

I’ve become increasingly aware that life is actually quite short, and I don’t want to spend it waiting for some future version of my life where everything is perfectly lined up. I want to make the most of the time I have now, and for me, travelling is a big part of that.

It’s not really about seeing as many countries as possible, although I do enjoy that. It’s not about staying in fancy hotels or taking the perfect photographs either. What I really love is the feeling of being somewhere new, learning about how other people live, meeting people I would never have met otherwise and coming home with experiences that I know I’ll remember for years.

I suppose that’s why, even after all the places I’ve been, I still don’t feel like I’ve travelled enough. There are still so many countries I’ve never seen, so many cultures I don’t understand, so many places I’ve never heard of and so many experiences I haven’t had yet.

And whenever I think I’ve finally done enough travelling for a while, I inevitably find myself looking at a map and wondering where I could go next.