Some Thoughts on Long-Term Travel

I've been thinking a lot about writing a post like this for a while, on whether I should write it, and how I should word it, and what exactly I want to say. When I started writing this blog back in late 2015 I wanted it to be about health and holistic living with some honest truths about what I have found out along my own personal health journey. However, because I wanted to keep writing whilst I was away it has gradually evolved into a travel blog. Either way, no matter what I blog about, I always wanted to be honest and write my true feelings about my experiences, which I think is becoming rare in a 'everything is amazing all the time' world of Instagram and social media.

Travel IS amazing, but just like any lifestyle that you choose to lead, it isn't amazing every minute of every day, especially when you travel for an extended period of time. It is inevitable that there are going to be aspects of your day-to-day life that you become bored with, or that annoy you. The truth is that a significant portion of long-travel is actually quite tedious. There's a lot of waiting around for busses, trains, planes, your luggage, the ticket queue to move faster. There is also a lot of planning involved and the amount of decisions that you have to make on a daily basis is multiplied. Where am I going to eat, where am I going to stay, how long am I going to stay here for, where am I going to go next, what fits in with my budget, what fits in with my timescale - these are just a handful of decisions that run through your head every day and may sound trivial, but making these decisions after a 16-hour bus journey or lost in the 42 degree heat in a part of the country where nobody speaks English, for example, is HARD. When you have a settled lifestyle all of these things are taken care of and you can focus on all of the other things that make your life your own, which is why it is so easy to get into a routine when you already have a routine to work around, and less decisions to consider.

People say that travel is addictive, and although this is a cliche phrase I really feel that it is the most accurate way to describe long-term travel. You're always on the hunt for that ultimate feeling, the high, the earth-shattering experience that shakes you so hard that you become a different person. In between the highs, what do you do? You wait, you plan, you save, you live your life in the best way possible to enable that high. So when I think of addiction, or what I know about addiction, it is very similar, the waiting, the shifting and the constant adjustment of your life with the sole focus and motive on the one thing that gives you that ultimate intense high, whatever it may be.

Over time, the high becomes less intense as you become less impressionable. When I got to South East Asia everything amazed me, I was constantly taking photographs, writing blog posts, eager to sign up to every tour and always wanting to go out and party and experience every little bit. Now that I am 18 months into my journey, I am still amazed by a lot of things but less appreciative of it as a rare moment. That's because I have accepted this as a part of life now. My mind has come to terms with the fact that hopping to a new place every few days or so and constantly seeing something new is a given. Even typing this seems absurd, I can't believe that moving through countries and taking the time to experience them has become a normality, but this has been my life for a year and a half now. When I meet other travellers, I can tell immediately how far into their trip they are. New travellers are more excited, more appreciative, they have their eyes more wide-open. That was me at the very beginning of my trip and I miss it! Once the exhaustion has set-in from a life of constant upheaval, it is difficult to be excited and you become more selective with your itinerary, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as you know more about what you want but it does hinder your willingness to try a little bit of everything, and love it even if it doesn't turn out how you planned.

I would not trade the past 18 months of my life for anything in the world. I am a completely different person because of travel and I am incredibly overwhelmed that I have had the opportunity to do this. When I think about leaving this life that I have led, the habits and skills I've adopted and the small comforts I've found in living an ever-changing life of uncertainty, my chest feels heavy and restricted a little like it does with heartbreak. However, when I travel, I want to soak up every moment. I want to be the fresh-faced traveller with my eyes wide-open. I don't think travel is a box that you tick off in life. Once you have fallen in love with travel, or succumbed to the 'addiction', you can never turn your back on it. Travellers always find a way to travel, if only for a few days, just to gain a sense of that feeling. Isn't that the only reason anyone does anything in life?

Why I Quit Quitting Sugar

LEGALLY ADDICTIVE

At the start of this year, I decided I was going to give up chocolate. I've made this decision on a whim multiple times throughout my life and never managed to succeed more than three days before, but I was serious about it this time. I had come to the realisation that chocolate was present in my diet pretty much every day. There was not one day I could remember where I hadn't had a little bit of chocolate, even if it was Nutella on my toast or a cake for somebody's birthday (or just because, you know, it's a Tuesday) or a packet of chocolate buttons at the end of the day that may or may not have been family sized. The more I thought about it, chocolate wasn't a treat anymore. It wasn't something I enjoyed. It was a habit, almost like an addiction. When I meditated in Cambodia for 10 days, the thing I found the most difficult to give up wasn't my phone or my camera, it was chocolate. I craved it, deeply. I even dreamt about it. Twice.

So, I quit. I went full on cold turkey, which was extremely difficult, but I was super determined and really serious about this. So serious in fact, that I thought, why stop there? Why not quit sugar altogether? The more I researched this, the more it made sense. Four weeks had passed, and I was feeling really good about myself, really awake and motivated. Whether that was driven by the fact that there was less sugar pumping through my veins or just the pure satisfaction of having actually stuck it out for so long, I'm not sure. Either way I got really into this, I started by reading the I Quit Sugar blog and found other blogs and forums from there. Now, I'm aware that the title of this post is about me QUITTING quitting sugar, which I'll get to , I promise. But first of all...

WHAT DID I FIND OUT?

CRAVINGS DON'T GO AWAY

Nope. Not for me. They got a lot easier to manage, but I'd broken a lifelong habit so I think this had the biggest impact. I was also extremely distracted by focusing so hard on maintaining a sugar-free diet. I read so many blogs where people spoke about it getting easier with each week, even getting to the point where chocolate just didn't seem appealing to them anymore. HOW? I never got that. I still had cravings 6 weeks on just strong as I did in the first week.

CAKE

IT'S AN EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT

Chocolate holds a special place in my heart. To me, it's Christmas at home and cosy nights in and every birthday cake I've had since I can remember. It was a reward for being well-behaved when I was young and my main 'treat' food throughout my life. It was hard to imagine life without it because it had always been so present within it. Maybe not as a raging obsession or obvious addiction, but consistently in the background. Once I'd come to terms with the emotional attachment I had with chocolate, I found it easier to distance myself from it. This meant trying to focus on the enjoyment of an activity without the added "bonus" of enjoying it with chocolate.

Sugar is EVERYWHERE.

I've spoken about it being difficult giving up chocolate alone, but giving up sugar altogether is on another level which verges on the impossible. Sugar is in pretty much everything, even wholegrain bread and pasta. It's in every single condiment you can think of. It's in canned soups, pasta sauces, and even in some spice mixes like paprika. Then you have the natural sugars in all fruits (a banana has approximately 10g of sugar!!) and vegetables like tomatoes and onions. The more I researched the more it freaked me out that sugar was practically unavoidable even in the healthiest of diets. What was I going to eat? I decided that focusing on cutting out refined sugars was the best way to approach this. I'd already started off by cutting out the main offender in my diet - chocolate. Then I moved on to cutting out all sauces and dips. I also switched all of my drink mixers to soda water (also I had no idea that tonic water had so much sugar in it! Anybody else mislead on this?) and seriously cut down on drinking wine. I switched all refined carbs like white bread and white rice to wholegrain and alternative carbs like sweet potato.

I found it really disheartening that even on a very 'clean' diet, sugar in some way, shape or form was always present. I had also taken all of the enjoyment out of my life where diet was concerned. I couldn't look forward to chocolate, or splurge on an Italian meal over the weekend. I even starting freaking out about the amount of sugar in a glass of wine and began to swerve it completely. It got to the point that I was actually a bit scared of having anything with a small amount of sugar in it. So the driving force of my lifestyle change was no longer a motivation for a healthier diet or better well-being, but FEAR. That's not what life is about! I wanted to have wine with my meal without panicking about it for hours afterwards.

I also realised that it was only chocolate that held an emotional attachment, not any other food. Once I came to this realisation, quitting sugar became almost like a punishment rather than a positive enjoyable venture.

So, I quit. In the most anti-climatic way, I didn't splurge or go out and buy a huge cake or anything like that. I just had a tiny bit of chocolate one day. Just enough, what I felt like. Nothing more. I starting eating white bread and pasta occasionally. I started drinking wine again (HOW I MISSED YOU!) Some habits from quitting sugar have stuck with me. I won't touch tonic water again. I honestly had no idea it contained the same amount of sugar as most soft drinks. I also don't pick on chocolate throughout the day or have it anywhere near as frequently as I used to. But I do have it, when I feel like it. Because life is for living, and enjoying, and not punishing yourself or restricting yourself to the point of misery.