Have you ever wondered why people travel? Have you ever asked yourself “Why am I walking through Nepal with a 10kg backpack with all my worldly possessions?” Have you ever thought about why you never left home and are still living in your parents, single and approaching your 30’s? Have you wondered why you are poor and living a life you love? While obvious factors like financial and familial status directly impact the decision to travel, here are a few others.
1. You are bored and have had enough.
This is a massive motivation for people – boredom. Boredom will force you to do crazy things for thrills. Chances are if you are bored you will think of doing anything to alleviate it. One of those things is going travelling. It doesn’t really matter where and it doesn’t really matter who with. What matters is that you get away from the grind of your mundane life.
By the same token, what is boring for you is regular and secure for others. “Only boring people get bored” is something I hear from time to time. Your attitude to your life can dictate whether you think it is boring or is something you enjoy. This is why some people get itchy feet and fly. And it is why some people rub some balm on that itch, kick back and go nowhere.
2. You need change
Change is needed when you break up with someone, someone dies, someone gets married or your best friend leaves to spend 2 years in Dubai. Change is needed when you lose a job, retire or give up drinking. Sometimes that change is most easily accessed by travelling. It does a quick fix, one size fits all type of remedy which gives you a readymade new life.
For some people that change is too much. Or they prefer to stay in their physical location and change their mentality or outlook instead. Or they simply ignore the need for change and become a little older and a little more bitter. Change can be too much for a “Home Bird” and that is why things can stay static.
3. You think far away hills are greener
Ah, them far away hills. Anyone who travels has a little bit of this in them. It is the energy that drives you to wonder and explore. You have that sense of adventure and you think that possibly what you have now, can be replaced by something better in the future. The emotion that drives your sense of life is guided by a thought of endless wonder and magic in what you have not seen before.
Many people who don’t travel are content in their lives. They have a good family, lifestyle and financial status and don’t see the need to move. The hills are perfectly green right here thank you very much. Why think that you can have better, when you are happy with what you have? What could I really get to see that could change my life?
4. Everyone else is doing it
Peer pressure is a powerful force. If all your friends were going to Australia or Europe or Canada for the summer, then wouldn’t you want to go too? Of course you would. A traveller is sometimes a person who is very easily influenced and will follow that crowd all the way to Borneo. Do you really want to be the one left watching facebook photos which make you filled with envy?
Likewise if you are normal and don’t have an incredibly strong sense of adventure, then being the one who leaves to see the world can be incredibly intimidating. That sense of adventure pales into insignificance when faced with the prospect of leaving the warm mushy cocoon of your friends behind.
5. You are an explorer
The most important factor to be a traveller is the sense of adventure that makes up an explorer. It is that emotional enthusiasm which makes you need to know more and see what is out there. It is a driving force which propels you to search out new people, places and experiences. It is the single biggest difference between a traveller and a “stay at homer”.
If you are not an explorer, then you cannot be a traveller. You don’t see the need. You don’t want to know. You will read the reports and watch the videos, but you have no interest in going out there and making them yourself. Non explorers stay at home and make the cookies. That’s ok, because we all love cookies.
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