Who doesn’t want to travel the world? Whether it’s for a few months, a week at a time or even indefinitely, travelling is life-changing and utterly remarkable. The World is a place full of rich, diverse cultures, incredible people and white sandy beaches and we’re here to tell you why you should quit your job and travel it. Before we get started, we want to mention that this blog isn’t aimed at any specific demographic. There are different things that hold people back from travelling, whether it be financial or otherwise and we want to take you all through how to break free and why it is the best choice you will ever make.
Life is short. We’re only presented with around 70 of the Earth’s 4.5 billion years, a lot less for the unlucky of us, and to do what? Earn minimum wage so that you’re tax-dodging boss can afford another trip to Panama? No, that should be you on that flight. Not only is life short, but the World is large, with so much to see, experience and taste, why would you not want to chase your dreams and see as much of it as our limited time on this big, floating rock would allow us? Think about it this way, when you have a week off from work, you try to fill that time with as much of what makes you happy as possible. As if that is the only time we are allowed to live for ourselves. We have been manufactured to live only for the weekends. 2 out of 7 days of the week, suddenly those 70 years of freedom only become 20, a lot less for the unlucky of us.
The reason we live our lives like this is simple, it is the norm. Go to school, go to university, get a job, and have a family, which is a beautiful way to live. Education and career, these things are key to developing as a person and we can’t imagine anything more beautiful than bringing a child into this World. But, if this is the life you love, why not try to fit some time into this process to embark across the globe and see what else there is to learn and experience. Also, if this process isn’t what you want and you want to be free from what society sets out for you, you can. Breaking out of the norm is never easy though, friends and family may tell you that you’re crazy, your minimum wage job makes saving up difficult, you’re conditioning will keep leading you back to what you know and what makes you comfortable. But the best things in life rarely come easily. The fact that breaking loose from the shackles of society is hard should be an incentive, it gives you something to have pride in, and it all starts with the decision to do it. The journey of a thousand air miles begins with a single step.
Travelling changes your perspective of things, and one of the reasons for this is because you are away from the norms of everyday life. You are actively making your own decisions, you have a taste of what the world is offering, and realize that it doesn’t have to just be a taste, that you can drink from it every day. You have a duty to yourself to be happy, to be free and to be the best possible version of yourself you can be. Travelling can make that dream a reality. We spend our days drinking Brazilian coffee, listening to American Jazz and Blues, eating French pastries. We spend our evenings eating Italian pasta, drinking Spanish Rioja whilst watching movies and programs set in foreign lands. This is all seems great and free, but we do it within a vacuum. It is escapism, a chance for us to remove ourselves from where the GPS on our Smartphone will tell us we are, if only for a second, and the reason for this is that we secretly, deep down want to escape. We take a taste of that Brazilian coffee, but don’t realize it that it doesn’t have to just be a taste, it can be a carnival on Copacabana Beach.
So, what’s stopping you? There are many things that may be stopping you, but how do you get around them? Firstly, you’re doing really well in your job, you’ve climbed the ladder, you’re earning a lot of money and you have a great sense of security and the idea of change is scary. If that’s the case, you’re in a much better position than most. You have a great CV and more than likely have a lot of money to get started on trips to new and interesting places. You are also more likely to find work whilst abroad if you have a good history of employment.
Maybe you’re on the other end of the spectrum, maybe you haven’t got enough money to travel. This is probably the most common reason for people not travelling nowadays. It doesn’t seem financially possible, but it can be. The main hurdle though is saving up. We found a good article with some tips for how to save up for travels, which can be read here. There are also ways of cutting down your spending whilst travelling which means you can either travel for longer, or can save up less. Accommodation, food and drink are some things to keep an eye on. Check out our old blog 'The Best Advice for Budget Travel' for a guide on how to make your money go further. It is also worth mentioning that budget travel is becoming more and more popular. We’ve found flights to countries in Europe for £4, accommodation in South East Asia for £3 a night, had cocktails in Thailand for 10 baht (25p) a pop. To find out more on how to get cheap flights you can check out our latest blog 'The Best Kept Secrets to Finding Cheap Flights' here. Travel doesn’t have to be a hotel room with a bath overlooking a City, sometimes down on the ground where the action is, is even more fun. Also, don’t be put off if you don’t have a very full CV, lots of jobs abroad which tailor towards travellers require very few qualifications. Many will base their decision on what you are like as a person and how you are with other people.
Maybe the idea of travelling is just too daunting, it can be a scary world and there are many challenges to be faced along the way. This makes it an even better opportunity as you can grow and learn from it. Maybe you just don’t know enough about travel. Well, that’s where we come in! The reason we started Unravelling Travelling was to make travelling more accessible to those who don’t believe they can do it, everything we write has that in mind. If you can’t find a blog that helps you here on our website then contact us and we will do everything in our power to help you out, whether that means finding cheap flights, great locations or awesome accommodation.
A common misconception about travelling is how hard it is, yes, you have culture shock, language barriers, financial worries and jet lag to contend with. But, there is so much out there that makes travelling, now more than ever, easy. The world is a far more accessible place than it used to be, technology has taken us to a place where we can have every resource at our fingertips. There is an app for anything and everything travel based, for flights, for accommodation, for navigation, for translations, for money exchange, you name it. Check out Nomadic Matt's list of must-have apps here. The support is there for those that search for it and need it. There are also so many people, as mentioned before, that want to help impart their knowledge on unsure travellers and the support network and community within the travel world is amazing. There’s blogs for everything, people you meet on the road are always ready to offer insights and work can be found for those that need it. We are also a part of a huge range of travel groups on Facebook. They are always on hand to give advice, whether you’re an experienced traveller visiting a new Country or a first time traveller seeking someone who can reassure them. If you search on Facebook for these travel groups you will find so many, but our favourites are Girls Love Travel (female only) and Shut Up and Go.
Now that we’ve discussed how travelling isn’t necessarily unattainable and we’ve looked into what it is that might hold us back, let’s voyage into why we believe you should quit your job to travel. The first reason is quite simply, for yourself. The life skills you gain from travelling are invaluable. You become more independent, more proactive, more willing to adapt. These skills follow you into other aspects of your life and you gain them by leaving your comfort zone and pushing your boundaries. You also achieve a new perspective of things, you realize just how small a part of the World you are and that can make you a more humble person, more open minded and more optimistic. We’ve found that travelling makes us actively want to learn new things such as different languages, different cultures etc.
The second reason is because of the people you will meet. Living in one place means that you will usually meet people fairly similar to yourself, even if you are from a multi cultural City like London. Some of the best people you will ever meet are while travelling. You meet people of different cultures, different walks of life, all of which you can learn from. Meeting these people also helps to remove any prejudices you may have of different people and cultures, it allows you to meet these people first hand. You will meet so many like-minded people on the road, people that see the World in the same way as you do and have similarly unique passions. We strongly believe that some of the people we have had the strongest connection with have been whilst travelling, some of which we have only seen and spent time with during fleeting moments, a matter of days or even just a single night out. This is because you know that your time with them is limited and want to make the most of it, but as we mentioned previously life itself is limited, so why don’t we live by that on a larger scale rather than on just a small scale?
Lastly, the places and experiences, seeing new places and having new experiences is incredibly fulfilling as well as fun. Which is what life is all about, right? Life should be spent with a smile on your face and a hop in your step. Regularly seeing and experiencing fresh, wonderful things can help you have a passion for life, it removes the monotony and gives you a drive, whilst also removing the fear of doing new and sometimes scary things. The World is too interesting and diverse to spend it in one place.
So, this is why we believe that quitting your job to travel the world is the best choice you will ever make. It gives you the choice and the freedom to experience what our amazing World has to offer. It helps you to change your perspective and create your own reality, whilst breaking out of the norms of society. The places you can go to and the experiences you can have are incredible and can remind you just how beautiful life is. You get to meet amazing people, from all over the World, people that can question the way you think and that you can learn from. You can learn some truly invaluable life skills, you can be become a better, more rounded version of yourself and you can do all of this whilst seeing and doing things that some people can only dream of. Taking the step can seem very hard and scary, but once you take the leap you will see countless benefits. Whether you decide to head back to work after a long stint travelling and bring your new found skills with you or decide to live a nomadic life bouncing from one Country to the next, you will have a new connection with the World around you and the people the inhabit it, which is something we believe the World could do with a bit more of nowadays.
Thank you so much for reading our blog, if you have any thoughts you would like to share with us or have quit your job to travel and want to give us your own insight, please contact us here! We would also be very appreciative if you could share this blog and help us reach more people. It would be a massive help!
