The Art of Long-Term Travel
Updated: October 1 2023
Nomadic Backpacker - World Traveller - Global Nomad - 31 years as a Long-Term, Low-Budget Traveller Backpacker - 113 Countries & Territories
How long is long-term? 6 months, 1 year? 10 years?
When I first went backpacking, I was intending to be away for 5 months. I thought that this was 'forever and it sure did feel like it. It is true, I did not enjoy my first trip that much. It dragged.
Sure there were great times and I met lots of interesting people but there was a lot of heartache associated with that trip.
I was much more at ease with my 2nd trip as a backpacker.
The trip lasted 8 months but I was forever in awe of those who hit the magical 1 year.
My 3rd trip was 10 months, the 4th, 18 months, the 5th, 1423 days - 3 years 10 months 23 days.
My 6th long term trip. I started out from the UK back in January 2020. Despite Covid-19, I managed to navigate my way through lockdowns and closures, only ever having to test just once. I got two AstraZeneca jabs in Mexico.
At some point after more than 2 years 2 months, I had to return home to UK. My father passed. The house needed to be sorted. My things given away, if I could find anyone who wanted it.
2 months later, I had finalised everything there and headed back to Mexico.
****
In between the 'long trips' listed above, there have been many much shorter trips. 2 or 3 months or when I have been replenishing my funds, I have squeezed in a 2-week break using my holiday allowance.
A trip of 2 months may seem like a dream to some, but Long Term Travel is a lifestyle. Getting married, having a nice house to show off to your friends to show that you were successful is also a lifestyle but the two are not compatible and not for me.
But if one is after adventure that is still possible whilst juggling a career. Matthew Lightfoot wrote a book documenting his misadventures doing just that.
Yes, time is shorter but as Matthews book lays out, you can cram quite a lot into 2 weeks. And the one immediate advantage that I can see with his 'modus operandi', is one has more funds at one's disposal (more on this later).
So for me, Long Term Travel would need to be for a minimum of one year. Anything less is a just holiday (or a gap year).
Long Term Travel is a lifestyle. I never travelled as is commonly quoted by others as their reason for hitting the road, to 'find myself'.
I always felt that one could find oneself in your own back yard as much as in a backstreet hotel in Calcutta.
I knew at 18 what made me tick. I knew what I liked, what I liked doing and what made me happy.
Equally, I knew what I didn't like.
I didn't need to go to Australia to 'find' myself. I wasn't lost.
***
Long-Term Travellers are 'happy being away'.
I am content with my lifestyle. I am living simply. I do not need to visit an endless stream of tourist haunts such as museums or churches and such like to be happy. That is one of the reasons why I enjoy Africa. Highlights are few and far between. But the highlights are generally massive.
Zimbabwe for example has 3 major sites that are well worth seeing, Victoria Falls, Chimanimani Mountains National Park and The Great Zimbabwe. Beyond that, they have very little. Whereas in Europe, cities can have 10 or more museums, 20 churches, all definitely worth seeing BUT I ask you, do you have the mental energy to take in 10 museums and churches in every city you would go to as you backpack your way through Europe?
But what Africa has in abundance is simple pleasures and adventures in everyday life.
The roads in Africa are mostly crap. Yes, we will all bitch about that 6-hour bus ride that turned into an 18-hour bus ride from hell but after you have had a beer or 6 and a good meal and a shower, or the 3 'S's (shit, shower and shave) you'll be looking back at the ride as one of the highlights.
Filling every day with sightseeing will leave you burned out and you will need a vacation to recover from your vacation. As does riding bush taxis in West Africa for me. Sure waiting 6 hours for enough passengers is ok for the first few times but after that, it sure gets tedious.
Luckily, when you cross the border to the next country, Guinea to Sierra Leone for example and you see more traditional buses that run (almost) to a schedule you will feel like you have gone to heaven. Simple pleasures.
On a 2 month trip in 1999 to Norway, I recall a short conversation in Bergen with a girl who had bought a 'museum card' so that she could visit all of the museums for a much-discounted rate. It seemed she was visiting the museums because she thought she should. But maybe just just 'loved' everything.
Yes, Bergen is a great city but I was content with visiting just the WW2 Resistance Museum. History of WW2 and the Cold War is something that interests me and will generally visit such places in Europe but I am not gonna rush around ticking off places included in my Museum Card just to say that I went there.
When you are a Long Term Traveller, you have time at your disposal. When you are on a short trip you will possibly want to fly between capital cities and you will miss out on crossing land borders.
As a Long Term Traveller, I love the border crossings. It cannot always be said that they are fun but sure they are an experience which I would not want to miss out on.
My 'first' border crossing was between Satun, Thailand and Kuala Perils, Malaysia, Kuala Perils near Langkawi. Not the typical border crossing. It was not even a land border. It was a sea border crossing. Oh, how I wish I had photos of this to share.
Most border crossings are very easy. They can be dragged out but it's not like they are going to refuse you. The only time this happened was crossing from Malaysia to Thailand at Sungai Kolok. The guy was an upstart. I just had to remind him that I was eligible to cross and get another 30 days.
***
Long Term-Travel is an Art, a skill.
I would say the number one gift that a Long Term Traveller can possess is the inability to get homesick. Being burnt out, being fed up or hating a place is not the same as being homesick.
If you are burnt out, you have had too much sensory overload. Too many museums, too many sites.
The solution here is to stop clicking off the sites like a trainspotter clicks off a new siting of a train.
Being fed up is most likely caused by being somewhere that does not appeal to your nature or that you discovered that being 'forever away' is not for you. Not that you are homesick but because the trip is no longer giving you anything.
Or you have had your fill of packing up every few days. Fun in the beginning. Unappealing after months away.
Stop for a while. Rent a room by the month where you don't have to think about packing your bags again for a while, where you are not thinking about what things you need to do to make you feel like you haven't wasted your day.
Binge watch 8 seasons of House, or the Bourne films. Take time out to read, learn a language and immerse yourself in the local culture a little more than you would normally. Getting comfortable with simply hanging out.
Hating a place will generally occur on the road less travelled. I struggle after more than a few months in West Africa. But I will bitch about it but am still loving it in a sadistic kinda way. But the solution here is to change countries/continents.
Homesickness is missing family and friends more than you can handle or missing too many certain aspects of the life you left behind.
Luckily, homesickness can be cured with a call home, preferably with a video link-up.
Do I miss any aspects of life back in England? Sure. I miss the weather. I miss working outside during the winter, I miss the nature of the Brecon Beacons in Wales and the hills of northern England. I miss Baked Beans on toast and I miss mugs of milky tea.
And the hard truth is that I don't miss my family enough to make me get homesick and regarding friends, I reconnected with a few when i went home to bury my dad. My life is here now.
***
Long-Term Travellers travel slow. We are no in any particular hurry. And we are happy just being.
Oaxaca was a great place to do 'nothing'. I'd watch the sunrise with my morning coffee on the rooftop of the hostel with some of the other early risers. We'd chat. We'd drift off to make breakfast, hang out, alone, check emails, read some news posts and then it's lunchtime. I'd take an afternoon walk. Others would nap. A sunset beer on the rooftop of the hostel and some blog work later and then the day was done. A perfect day.
Covid has forced me to travel slowly. Why hurry? I used to be good for 2 weeks in one place but now, what's the point in hurrying? Mexico is a good place to chill until more of the Covid madness has settled down a bit.
And with the slower pace of life, I am more content. I am much happier 'just being' than I used to be. Though at times I am itching to just hit the road and travel as I used to.
Staying put kept me safe. I wasn't on a bus every few days. Museums being closed saved me entrance fees and being museum'ed out as they sure would be interesting as the whole Latin American culture is still something very new to me.
Sure I went to Monte Alban (the inside museum was and still is closed) and is totally an outdoor museum as is Teotihuacan.
A month in Zipolite on the beach, lazing in the hammock. Chilling, staying safe.
***
Managing finances: No, I am not rich. No, money still doesn't grow on trees. My travels are funded by my own hard graft. Before this trip, I worked my ass off. I put in the hours. 60 hours a week over 6 days, out in all weathers delivering mail. I'd put in the miles. 16 km a day some times. Easy? yeah a few times a month, 6 days a week for 2 years? You get used to it. I also spent very little in this period.
Old school style. None of this relying on the now useless travel affiliate marketing programs.
The dream is to get this blog to a stage where I can start running ads and these will be used to fund the travels. And if my funds run out, I am screwed. But never mind. You don't have to worry, because I am not.
There are many blog posts out there about how to save money for travels and how to spend less when you are actually travelling.
Some have very good tips. Some, like How to Travel the World for Free, I just don't agree with this motto. You cannot travel for free, unless you are happy to stay in a relatively small number of countries. Embassies are not issuing visas for free!
Working while you are travelling is not travelling for free. Your time and effort is required and you are compensated with a free bed, free food and sometimes a wage.
Travelling for free is drinking from fountains, bathing in rivers, hitchhiking and dumpster diving.
I have always classed myself as a Backpacker and for me, a backpacker is a low budget traveller.
Sure there are now different categories of backpacker. The party traveller, the flashpacker, the gap year traveller. And those who vlog and boast how they got a real bargain of a hotel room for 50Euros or about how they can live on 40USD a day in Mexico and think it's backpacking. 'Scuse me but you have hit a nerve!
In Oaxaca I was living on less than 10US$ a day. I didn't need anything else. I was living contently, 15,000km from home on the price of 1 coffee in London.
Covid did me a quite a few favours. I stopped going to a cafe or Mc D for a daily coffee or to a bar to drink a beer. A portable water heater and the local store became my best friends.
One of the reasons I think why people are reluctant to take the leap is the money or rather they don't think they could enjoy life living on such a low amount. They wanna have fun.
As I backpacked down through Africa, a trip up Kilimanjaro is something I was simply not prepared to pay 120 Euro a day for. Those on shorter trips and with a job to go back to or those who are heavily sponsored, it's a chance to do a great blog post. For me, something that, sadly, I won't be doing anytime soon.
Am I missing out? Yes on somethings. But on a day to day level I am still having fun. Fun doesn't just mean adrenaline adventures.
Yes there are lots of way to replenish your funds once you hit the road. I have volunteered in Korea, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.
Essentially I was working for a free bed and food but the hostel in Korea gave me a 200US$ bonus for scrubbing the hostel 'Swiss style'. In Kyrgyzstan I was running the hostel, running a bike rental business and wheeling and dealing with tour operators and those wanting camping supplies. I needed 1 more season to make it work but I didn't return.
In Georgia, as a volunteer, I was wanted on call all hours of the day and night. I walked out.
I need to find something that covers my daily costs. I am hoping that the blog will provide this eventually.
I could write a post purely dedicated to saving money for your travels and another one on how to hang on to that money once you have hit the road.
Many tips and hacks have been written about many times over but I have a whole load of them yet to be shared so stay tuned.
As a Long Term Traveller you have to manage this from the road. Keeping track of your finances and managing bank accounts are a nightmare but have fond new solutions even without a UK address.
Long Term Travel is not for everyone. But for me, the positives outweigh the negatives by a staggering 99 to 1.
See you on the road somewhere.
When I first went backpacking, I was intending to be away for 5 months. I thought that this was 'forever and it sure did feel like it. It is true, I did not enjoy my first trip that much. It dragged.
Sure there were great times and I met lots of interesting people but there was a lot of heartache associated with that trip.
I was much more at ease with my 2nd trip as a backpacker.
The trip lasted 8 months but I was forever in awe of those who hit the magical 1 year.
My 3rd trip was 10 months, the 4th, 18 months, the 5th, 1423 days - 3 years 10 months 23 days.
My 6th long term trip. I started out from the UK back in January 2020. Despite Covid-19, I managed to navigate my way through lockdowns and closures, only ever having to test just once. I got two AstraZeneca jabs in Mexico.
At some point after more than 2 years 2 months, I had to return home to UK. My father passed. The house needed to be sorted. My things given away, if I could find anyone who wanted it.
2 months later, I had finalised everything there and headed back to Mexico.
****
In between the 'long trips' listed above, there have been many much shorter trips. 2 or 3 months or when I have been replenishing my funds, I have squeezed in a 2-week break using my holiday allowance.
A trip of 2 months may seem like a dream to some, but Long Term Travel is a lifestyle. Getting married, having a nice house to show off to your friends to show that you were successful is also a lifestyle but the two are not compatible and not for me.
But if one is after adventure that is still possible whilst juggling a career. Matthew Lightfoot wrote a book documenting his misadventures doing just that.
Yes, time is shorter but as Matthews book lays out, you can cram quite a lot into 2 weeks. And the one immediate advantage that I can see with his 'modus operandi', is one has more funds at one's disposal (more on this later).
So for me, Long Term Travel would need to be for a minimum of one year. Anything less is a just holiday (or a gap year).
Long Term Travel is a lifestyle. I never travelled as is commonly quoted by others as their reason for hitting the road, to 'find myself'.
I always felt that one could find oneself in your own back yard as much as in a backstreet hotel in Calcutta.
I knew at 18 what made me tick. I knew what I liked, what I liked doing and what made me happy.
Equally, I knew what I didn't like.
I didn't need to go to Australia to 'find' myself. I wasn't lost.
***
Long-Term Travellers are 'happy being away'.
I am content with my lifestyle. I am living simply. I do not need to visit an endless stream of tourist haunts such as museums or churches and such like to be happy. That is one of the reasons why I enjoy Africa. Highlights are few and far between. But the highlights are generally massive.
Zimbabwe for example has 3 major sites that are well worth seeing, Victoria Falls, Chimanimani Mountains National Park and The Great Zimbabwe. Beyond that, they have very little. Whereas in Europe, cities can have 10 or more museums, 20 churches, all definitely worth seeing BUT I ask you, do you have the mental energy to take in 10 museums and churches in every city you would go to as you backpack your way through Europe?
But what Africa has in abundance is simple pleasures and adventures in everyday life.
The roads in Africa are mostly crap. Yes, we will all bitch about that 6-hour bus ride that turned into an 18-hour bus ride from hell but after you have had a beer or 6 and a good meal and a shower, or the 3 'S's (shit, shower and shave) you'll be looking back at the ride as one of the highlights.
Filling every day with sightseeing will leave you burned out and you will need a vacation to recover from your vacation. As does riding bush taxis in West Africa for me. Sure waiting 6 hours for enough passengers is ok for the first few times but after that, it sure gets tedious.
Luckily, when you cross the border to the next country, Guinea to Sierra Leone for example and you see more traditional buses that run (almost) to a schedule you will feel like you have gone to heaven. Simple pleasures.
On a 2 month trip in 1999 to Norway, I recall a short conversation in Bergen with a girl who had bought a 'museum card' so that she could visit all of the museums for a much-discounted rate. It seemed she was visiting the museums because she thought she should. But maybe just just 'loved' everything.
Yes, Bergen is a great city but I was content with visiting just the WW2 Resistance Museum. History of WW2 and the Cold War is something that interests me and will generally visit such places in Europe but I am not gonna rush around ticking off places included in my Museum Card just to say that I went there.
When you are a Long Term Traveller, you have time at your disposal. When you are on a short trip you will possibly want to fly between capital cities and you will miss out on crossing land borders.
As a Long Term Traveller, I love the border crossings. It cannot always be said that they are fun but sure they are an experience which I would not want to miss out on.
My 'first' border crossing was between Satun, Thailand and Kuala Perils, Malaysia, Kuala Perils near Langkawi. Not the typical border crossing. It was not even a land border. It was a sea border crossing. Oh, how I wish I had photos of this to share.
Most border crossings are very easy. They can be dragged out but it's not like they are going to refuse you. The only time this happened was crossing from Malaysia to Thailand at Sungai Kolok. The guy was an upstart. I just had to remind him that I was eligible to cross and get another 30 days.
***
Long Term-Travel is an Art, a skill.
I would say the number one gift that a Long Term Traveller can possess is the inability to get homesick. Being burnt out, being fed up or hating a place is not the same as being homesick.
If you are burnt out, you have had too much sensory overload. Too many museums, too many sites.
The solution here is to stop clicking off the sites like a trainspotter clicks off a new siting of a train.
Being fed up is most likely caused by being somewhere that does not appeal to your nature or that you discovered that being 'forever away' is not for you. Not that you are homesick but because the trip is no longer giving you anything.
Or you have had your fill of packing up every few days. Fun in the beginning. Unappealing after months away.
Stop for a while. Rent a room by the month where you don't have to think about packing your bags again for a while, where you are not thinking about what things you need to do to make you feel like you haven't wasted your day.
Binge watch 8 seasons of House, or the Bourne films. Take time out to read, learn a language and immerse yourself in the local culture a little more than you would normally. Getting comfortable with simply hanging out.
Hating a place will generally occur on the road less travelled. I struggle after more than a few months in West Africa. But I will bitch about it but am still loving it in a sadistic kinda way. But the solution here is to change countries/continents.
Homesickness is missing family and friends more than you can handle or missing too many certain aspects of the life you left behind.
Luckily, homesickness can be cured with a call home, preferably with a video link-up.
Do I miss any aspects of life back in England? Sure. I miss the weather. I miss working outside during the winter, I miss the nature of the Brecon Beacons in Wales and the hills of northern England. I miss Baked Beans on toast and I miss mugs of milky tea.
And the hard truth is that I don't miss my family enough to make me get homesick and regarding friends, I reconnected with a few when i went home to bury my dad. My life is here now.
***
Long-Term Travellers travel slow. We are no in any particular hurry. And we are happy just being.
Oaxaca was a great place to do 'nothing'. I'd watch the sunrise with my morning coffee on the rooftop of the hostel with some of the other early risers. We'd chat. We'd drift off to make breakfast, hang out, alone, check emails, read some news posts and then it's lunchtime. I'd take an afternoon walk. Others would nap. A sunset beer on the rooftop of the hostel and some blog work later and then the day was done. A perfect day.
Covid has forced me to travel slowly. Why hurry? I used to be good for 2 weeks in one place but now, what's the point in hurrying? Mexico is a good place to chill until more of the Covid madness has settled down a bit.
And with the slower pace of life, I am more content. I am much happier 'just being' than I used to be. Though at times I am itching to just hit the road and travel as I used to.
Staying put kept me safe. I wasn't on a bus every few days. Museums being closed saved me entrance fees and being museum'ed out as they sure would be interesting as the whole Latin American culture is still something very new to me.
Sure I went to Monte Alban (the inside museum was and still is closed) and is totally an outdoor museum as is Teotihuacan.
A month in Zipolite on the beach, lazing in the hammock. Chilling, staying safe.
***
Managing finances: No, I am not rich. No, money still doesn't grow on trees. My travels are funded by my own hard graft. Before this trip, I worked my ass off. I put in the hours. 60 hours a week over 6 days, out in all weathers delivering mail. I'd put in the miles. 16 km a day some times. Easy? yeah a few times a month, 6 days a week for 2 years? You get used to it. I also spent very little in this period.
Old school style. None of this relying on the now useless travel affiliate marketing programs.
The dream is to get this blog to a stage where I can start running ads and these will be used to fund the travels. And if my funds run out, I am screwed. But never mind. You don't have to worry, because I am not.
There are many blog posts out there about how to save money for travels and how to spend less when you are actually travelling.
Some have very good tips. Some, like How to Travel the World for Free, I just don't agree with this motto. You cannot travel for free, unless you are happy to stay in a relatively small number of countries. Embassies are not issuing visas for free!
Working while you are travelling is not travelling for free. Your time and effort is required and you are compensated with a free bed, free food and sometimes a wage.
Travelling for free is drinking from fountains, bathing in rivers, hitchhiking and dumpster diving.
I have always classed myself as a Backpacker and for me, a backpacker is a low budget traveller.
Sure there are now different categories of backpacker. The party traveller, the flashpacker, the gap year traveller. And those who vlog and boast how they got a real bargain of a hotel room for 50Euros or about how they can live on 40USD a day in Mexico and think it's backpacking. 'Scuse me but you have hit a nerve!
In Oaxaca I was living on less than 10US$ a day. I didn't need anything else. I was living contently, 15,000km from home on the price of 1 coffee in London.
Covid did me a quite a few favours. I stopped going to a cafe or Mc D for a daily coffee or to a bar to drink a beer. A portable water heater and the local store became my best friends.
One of the reasons I think why people are reluctant to take the leap is the money or rather they don't think they could enjoy life living on such a low amount. They wanna have fun.
As I backpacked down through Africa, a trip up Kilimanjaro is something I was simply not prepared to pay 120 Euro a day for. Those on shorter trips and with a job to go back to or those who are heavily sponsored, it's a chance to do a great blog post. For me, something that, sadly, I won't be doing anytime soon.
Am I missing out? Yes on somethings. But on a day to day level I am still having fun. Fun doesn't just mean adrenaline adventures.
Yes there are lots of way to replenish your funds once you hit the road. I have volunteered in Korea, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.
Essentially I was working for a free bed and food but the hostel in Korea gave me a 200US$ bonus for scrubbing the hostel 'Swiss style'. In Kyrgyzstan I was running the hostel, running a bike rental business and wheeling and dealing with tour operators and those wanting camping supplies. I needed 1 more season to make it work but I didn't return.
In Georgia, as a volunteer, I was wanted on call all hours of the day and night. I walked out.
I need to find something that covers my daily costs. I am hoping that the blog will provide this eventually.
I could write a post purely dedicated to saving money for your travels and another one on how to hang on to that money once you have hit the road.
Many tips and hacks have been written about many times over but I have a whole load of them yet to be shared so stay tuned.
As a Long Term Traveller you have to manage this from the road. Keeping track of your finances and managing bank accounts are a nightmare but have fond new solutions even without a UK address.
Long Term Travel is not for everyone. But for me, the positives outweigh the negatives by a staggering 99 to 1.
See you on the road somewhere.
Nomadic Backpacker CDMX Mexico. December 2022