If you have been questioning if you have cured your wanderlust or not, the below points are some tell-tale signs that you are nowhere near done exploring!
You spend your free time drooling over travel vlogs, blogs, and documentaries.
No matter if it’s for 5 minutes or a few hours, with any spare time you have you are looking at, or researching something having to do with travel. You got it bad when it’s not a specific place either. When you are just lusting after anywhere different. From the exotic landscape of Cambodia to the regal beauty of the UK. You don’t care exactly what the geography is because at this point you can LITERALLY find beauty anywhere. You start innocently watching a Youtube video about Nepal, for example, but by the end of the day you have new hiking boots in your online shopping cart and the Himalayan hiking trail pdf downloaded on your desktop. You are incurably curious toward all that is in the world and realize that your life is a potential novel you are drafting the pages for.
Maybe you travelled a few places already- even worse. Now you have the taste of travel, wanderlust addiction, itchy feet. You find yourself trying to relive the high you felt from seeing the Eiffel Tower in person or from eating pasta in Italy and you simply can’t. The closest you can get is to temporarily live vicariously through some kind of online content until your next fix. Don’t worry, you are definitely not alone. You seem like a candidate for this global group that I’m apart of- TA . Travelers Anonymous We are all friends here.
It’s hard for you to buy things.
Since you are so enthralled by your potential next trip, it is hard to purchase anything that does not directly work toward making that happen. You think, “Well, yeah, my shirt has holes and I only have one now and I have an important meeting tomorrow ,but what if I just wear black? That’s classy and no one will know if it’s dirty, old, or new. Plus 5 bucks is expensive for a shirt. You know how many Forint that is? How many Kuna?”
You can’t help but think of currency exchange whenever you use your native money. You spend most of your time at the shops comparing items with experiences instead of with other items. And experiences win- every time. Not to say that you won’t get something that you absolutely NEED it’s just the definition of what that thing is has altered greatly. You are sensitive to money because you now realize how much value it can bring, real value. You also realize how easy you can waste it on something that does not matter at all.
You don’t leave home without your camera.
It’s simply too risky. You have horror stories of when the most unthinkable thing happened right before your very eyes in the most unexpected place, but have no evidence of it because on that occasion you decided to leave your camera at home. Or worse, it was with you but the battery was dead! You vowed never again! So even in your small home town you are looking through a lens. Eye on a target, finger ready to pull the trigger, so to speak. You have learned your lesson and have a new appreciation for noteworthy snap-able moments. You carry your camera with you because you know that amazing memories can be made anywhere and it can all be beautiful if you have the right filter. Without noticing, you have become a bit of a documentarian, making sure to capture any and all footage that may be useful for later projects. What seems like mundane surroundings or monotonous schedules have the potential to be transformed in your eyes which makes life so much more saturated!
You notice the little things.
It might sound overly trite, but it’s true. Details start to peak your interest in ways unimaginable before. Suddenly, you notice the brightness in the eyes of the child at the grocer, or the intricate design on the pack of gum in your purse. You are noticing things. Your reality has introduced a sense of wonder to the seemingly ordinary which can make you seem more immersed in day to day outings and simple conversation then your peers may be prepared for. You don’t care. You like this feeling. Nothing is meaningless. Everything can and should have a story (you think) I like to call this traveler’s eye. Traveler’s eye is when no matter where you are you maintain the eyes of a visitor. Your pupils act as question marks to the world before you. This is a lovely condition to be in because you rarely, if ever, take anything for granted.
You barely speak your native language anymore.
Lets say that your native tongue is English. Well, that’s what you think it is. Now you’re unsure because you constantly find yourself using phrases from different languages in your everyday life that make you appear like a psycho. You are The most confusing foreigner of all time because you have an assortment of languages you inject into conversation subconsciously. Friends or strangers might find you pretentious because you insist on saying Notre Dame correctly during a football game, or you insist on ordering your whole meal in Spanish at the restaurant even if your waiter is from Ohio. You find this the right thing to do because you are respecting the culture associated to the language and refuse to lackadaisically speak when communication has become so rich for you. Another thing you may do is forget the English words for things, or pick up on the audible mannerisms that one would find in a foreign country. Your old “uhhs and umms” have turned into “ehmms and ooos” It’s kinda funny when you think about it because you are so confusing to people who don’t know you well. No one can quite guess where you are from originally because your speech has been so influenced by your travels.
You start most sentences with “When I was in (insert country)”
Ok, this can be obnoxious and sadly, I do this all the time.
It comes from an innocent part of you that is sharing something that is important to you, but in your travel-addicted mind you can’t think of life outside of when you were in your last exotic local. Anything and everything can be compared to when you were in Germany that one time or the crazy lesson you learned from that hostel in Mexico. This is such an obvious sign that you need to get moving again because you keep bringing up the times when you were. It’s as if your body is home, but your mind is elsewhere. Be careful with this though because people may think you are trying to brag. Maybe you are… The reason you will do this all the time is because you fell in love. You know what I mean...when you fall for someone they are always on your mind and you find ways to bring them up in conversation. Same thing. You fell in love with travel and you haven’t realized it yet. Let me be the best friend that gives you clarity on the situation…YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH TRAVEL! If you want to take it a step further- feverishly pack your bags, take an Uber to the airport and board the next flight to the place that has been occupying your thoughts. You and I both know that is what you really want to do. You are just biding your time until you find the right moment… well, this is it!
Nowadays, it is so common to meet people who are more afraid to travel and believe everything they hear about a place without ever setting foot there. Don’t be that guy. The signs above are things that you already know about yourself and if you need a good reason to venture out, the best one is because this is your life! No one ever regretted traveling. Even if it came with struggles, food poisoning, and long flights, most everyone says that they would do it again and look back fondly on those growing moments as defining times in their lives. There is nothing worse then regret and if there is a little voice inside of you that won’t let you rest until you purchase that ticket, listen to it. You never know what the next trip will bring.
