How I Stopped Traveling Too Much

In my younger days, I opted to quit my job and travel around the world, which I surely don’t regret.

However, I had to quit that way of living as well.

I could not bear to be a lifelong traveler and I chose to stop traveling too much!

Let me share why.

During my initial days, I enjoyed each day of my solo travel. By the age of 30, I had already visited 30 countries of the world, but I had started getting tired. My body was the worst sufferer than my mind. Even though I wanted to travel more as a fulltime traveler, I had started realizing that excessive journeying was taking its toll on my body.

I would frequently experience high and low blood pressure, and my heart beat would fluctuate too much. Whenever I took the all-inclusive meals on lucrative offers, I could not stop eating too much at the buffet breakfast. And whenever I would travel on budget, I had to suffice myself with cheap fast food options. On some days, I would try to calm my stomach with unhealthy snacks and chips. I knew that I was doing the wrong practices, but travel forced me to do it over and over again.

Traveling in an airplane is the worst experience of all my fulltime travel time. I just hate airplanes, but I cannot help taking a flight at times for long journeys. If the distance that I have to cover is 3000 kilometers, for instance, I would never use any car booking app to hire a Car Rental. I would surely look for the cheapest possible flight that would save me time and money. In my heart, I knew that I was exposing myself to harmful pathogens, for which my body was possibly not prepared. Still, I had to do it because I could not travel such an enormous distance by car on my own.

Being a solo traveler for life was not fun after a few years. The agonies of solo travel had started aggravating and I had already started thinking of living a regular life. I had to search for work in a new country almost every six months. If my employer knew that I would leave work in a few months, they would hesitate to hire me, which made it even more difficult to earn and live in an unfamiliar place. My savings were always meager and I was always desperate to find work, the stress of which would not let me enjoy my journey.

Irregular workout routine also harmed my body. Sometimes, I would start losing weight, and sometimes, I would start losing it quickly. It had began becoming difficult to understand my own body that I had nurtured for 20 years in India under the supervision of my lovely mom.

Finally, as I turned 30, I promised myself on my birthday that I would find a healthier life in Indonesia as it was the place where I found my heart belonged. Now, at 35, I can happily say that I don’t have any regrets in life, and I am enjoying running my hotel in a little island in Indonesia.

And I don’t intend to leave this lifestyle any time soon!  

How I Learned a Basic Trekking Lesson the Hard Way

When you are an amateur trekker, you tend to make mistakes, and I had made my share of mistakes early in my trekking vocation. I was a terrible traveler in the beginning, but the good part is that I learned from my blunders, the major one of which was over-packing things. A night before the road trip would begin, I found myself struggling to stuff things in a bag that always felt too small to accommodate my stuff. On my first trek to Triund itself, I learned the fundamental lesson that I should never pack redundant stuff for a trekking expedition.

Triund trek

So the problem began within the first kilometers of our route. The Triund trek is considered an easy one, and seasoned hikers are known to finish it while climbing one rock after another. However, I was the worst member of my group who was panting badly, one because my bag was too heavy, and two I had not worked out in years before that day. Both the reasons made me miserable, so much so, that I would sit after every 300-400 meters. I wanted to kill myself for packing that extra makeup, clothes, and snacks in my bag. Although my backpack must have been under 7-8 kilograms, it had become a mammoth weight on my back. I can swear to anyone that I wanted to get rid of every surplus thing in my bag, and I did throw away a few things.

It was hard to part with the book, Vagabonding, that I wanted to read on the mountaintop. However, I made peace with it and thought that I would buy it again when I go back home to Noida. When we were taking cheap car rentals, I had thought that what difference does it make to pack a few extra things? We had the boot of the car in the end. But I was highly mistaken, even when we are traveling in a car with many people, we have to be rational with the things we take along because every bag in the car makes a difference. My friends were clearly irritated when I showed up with a trolley suitcase and a backpack. I had disregarded their irritation at that time, but I was actually apologetic when I understood that I should have paid heed to the online articles that talked about minimal packing, which seemed exaggerating at that time. Nevertheless, I had learned my lesson when I had to part with my expensive makeup, a few clothes, a hat, and that extra pair of sunglasses in my bag.

The Kheerganga trek

Now I was again back at that point of packing for my next trekking trip. I had forgotten to research about the difficulty level of this trail, but thankfully my bag was much lighter this time. I had not made the mistake of keeping makeup and extra clothes this time. When we were leaving from our basecamp, I dropped every unnecessary thing in the car. Thankfully, I managed to trek well even though the route was even more difficult than the Triund Trek.

However, when I reached the top of the valley, I again peeked into my bag, and realized that I could have left behind that extra pack of biscuits and a T-shirt that I had thought I might use. I, with my boyfriend and friends, successfully climbed up and down the mountain. The Kheerganga trek was a memorable one as I did not have to handle many challenges like before, and I would surely follow the rule of minimal packing in future as well.