8 Things That Happen When You Travel Full-Time

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:00    And so that's why I talk about the quote unquote dark side of travel and living abroad, because a lot of the time it does feel like you're living in a postcard, but not all of the time. 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:33    Well, hello there. Good morning, afternoon or evening depending on where you are in the world. Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to episode 121 of Badass Digital Nomads. Today we're talking about eight things that happen when you become a digital nomad or a full-time traveler, and then four ways to overcome those challenges. So we're talking about some of the hurdles that you can inevitably expect when you go out into the world with your one-way ticket, but then of course some preventative measures and some solutions. If you've been following my podcast and channel for a long time now, then you might remember a video that I did recently about things that I dislike about living abroad and also things that I like about living abroad, but those were geared more towards living abroad full time as an expat, whereas the topic I wanted to cover for you today has to do more with what happens when you travel nomadically for a long time.  

Kristin:    00:01:45    You know what happens when you leave your home for an undetermined amount of time and you don't know when or if you're coming back. And the reason I wanted to cover this topic for you is to balance out that photoshopped laptop lifestyle stuff that you see on Instagram and social media, because that doesn't tell the whole story. And a lot of those posts are being made by people who are very new to the lifestyle of full-time travel, and they're still in the honeymoon phase <laugh>, or they might not be very candid or transparent about the struggles that they're experiencing. At the same time, because these things are not mutually exclusive, there are going to be moments where you're traveling the world, and you're just pinching yourself and you really can't believe your luck to be where you are and doing what you're doing and having the experience that you're having, the things that you see around you and in front of you.  

Kristin:    00:02:52    But that doesn't mean that, that you aren't also dealing with some stuff in the background, and it's really impossible to capture the layers of the struggles, the highs and the lows of travel, and just an Instagram post or a social media post. But before we get into the list of things that you will expect as a full-time traveler, one thing that's really important to mention is that this is not to dissuade you from traveling whatsoever. Quite the opposite. This podcast is to prepare you so that you know what to expect and that you have a point of reference. You can just be like, oh, this is number five from Kristin's list. No worries. I got this. And it's not just gonna come out of left field because even if you don't experience all of the things on this list, you'll still experience some of them.  

Kristin:    00:03:57    It's funny how the brain works. As I was thinking of the challenges of full-time travel, I also started making this mental list of all of the euphoric moments that I've experienced while traveling. I mean too many to name, I'm not gonna bore you with them <laugh>, but I remember sitting with my friend in Bordeaux and we had like the best chocolate almond croissant of our lives, and we shared that croissant together in a cappuccino on a sunny day without a cloud in the sky. And it's like small moments like that. You're on the top of a mountain or you're dancing in the streets of Havana, Cuba, making friends with people when you don't speak the language and just drinking way too many mojitos, like all of these really amazing experiences that you get while traveling. You also need to go through some hard stuff sometimes to get to the good stuff.  

Kristin:    00:04:54    And so I was just reflecting on that, like how you, you have to have both. And I was also reflecting on the reality that every single one of you, you all have a different wishlist, a different bucket list, basically as unique as who you are as an individual person. And so all of the things that you've experienced in life, all of the people you've met, all of the places you've seen, all of these things give your life such meaning and depth. But that doesn't mean you have to go it alone when you hit a roadblock. That doesn't mean you have to figure everything out on your own. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. And so that's why I talk about the quote unquote dark side of travel and living abroad, because a lot of the time it does feel like you're living in a postcard, but not all of the time.  

Kristin:    00:05:58    And so everything in this podcast is something that I've experienced personally, but it's also a list of things that I have witnessed in other long-term travelers. I actually wanna share an Instagram post with you that I saw from a fellow digital nomad could have been three years ago that really summed up the sentiment of what I want to help you avoid. And um, I actually bookmarked it because I had just done, I think it was in 2018, I had done three workshops that year in different countries on how to sustain the digital nomad lifestyle. And then I saw someone struggling in real time with some of the very things that I talked about in my presentations. And the reason I talked about those things is because I've worked in the international relocation industry pretty much my entire career. I studied it in college when I studied abroad in Australia, and then I, my actually my company turned 10 years old today as I'm recording this podcast, my relocation company.  

Kristin:    00:07:16    So it's a very exciting day. But um, yeah, I've been doing this, um, through my own company for 10 years and then before that, uh, for five years indirectly while working in real estate in Costa Rica. And so I, I know how important it is to be able to integrate when you get to another country. I know how all of these soft skills and the mental health aspects of things can get overlooked when people are focusing more on just the logistics. So integrating into life in your new country is a key part of what I've been doing in relocation for more than 10 years now. So that's a side note, but if you are planning on traveling or moving abroad in the next year or so and you are struggling with some of the things that come with an international relocation, then I am of course here to help. 

Kristin:    00:08:12    I'll drop a link in the show notes to my relocation website if you have any questions. Or you can email me to my relocation inbox, which is info@orbisrelocation.com. That is O R B, like Belgium, <laugh>. I like Iceland. S like Spain relocation.com. Anyway, segue the post that she put on Instagram. She writes, hashtag Manic Monday today marks the beginning of a month-long stay to start up a small routine again and focus on work, decompress from long-term constant travel and find some resemblance of balance. Despite all this excitement and my actual desire for stability, today was a tough day and all I wanted to do was be on the road again. I'm tired and I'm anxious. Grounding down and focusing was much harder than anticipated, even though I crave stability, the minute I get it, my first instinct is to run. Hmm, I wish I had some wisdom to drop with this, but I am just learning about these patterns, still searching on how to remain still long enough to gain new insights.  

Kristin:    00:09:35    And so I wish that I could go back in time and give her this podcast. But through opening up and sharing her personal struggles after a few years on the road, she probably didn't know that she would be contributing to this message today and helping you and your travels in the future. So you can hear how she was struggling between, you know, her desire to travel and her desire for stability and groundedness. And this is really the essence of long-term travel. And in the video, you'll actually hear the quote in this podcast, I, I quote Seneca and I quote Socrates, these problems are timeless. They might seem like first world problems, but the fact that thousands of years ago Seneca and Socrates were writing about wanderlust is just some insight into how much the human experience has remained the same for. So there were people using travel as a form of escape probably since the beginning of time.  

Kristin:    00:10:52    And now we just live in a time of such abundance that it can be more overwhelming than ever. So I'll give you my tips in this podcast, but the real conversation happens when everyone gets involved. So if you would like to join the conversation happening over on YouTube and in my Facebook group, Badass Digital Nomads, I'll link to my community page and the group and the show notes, and you can vote in the polls that we have going on and you can see, uh, what everyone thinks are the hardest parts of full-time travel. And um, you can comment on the video, vote in the poll, and we all learn from each other's experiences, right? We're all mirrors for each other and we're all here to help each other. So the video was just published today and already we have hundreds of comments from people all over the world sharing their struggles and their solutions.  

Kristin:    00:11:56    We had Neil and Dolly who both wrote that loneliness is the biggest problem for them while traveling. RG said, great video. I have a two-year plan to move to Spain and travel Europe. This really brings clarity to the challenges that I will face while living abroad. Thank you for your insight. You're welcome. RG. Uncle said that the challenge that people typically have with their routines and friends and work that can get easier for you as you get older. So he's giving some encouragement there. And he said that he has a really good rhythm now with living for four or five months out of the year in Thailand, six months at home, and then a month or so of just nomadic backpacking. So each of you will have to find what rhythm works best for you. And that is the fun part. By the way, all, all, all of this is fun, but it's really fun to choose where you're going to spend half the year.  

Kristin:    00:12:59    I also just talked to another listener today, uh, John who said that he wants to spend six months a year in Northern Italy or in Brazil. And so, you know, that's the fun part of relocation planning. Another subscriber, Justin, said that he's currently stuck at home like many of you I'm sure. And he said he misses the change of pace and the change of scenery that traveling gives you, and especially the exposure to different foods and cultures. So we talk about this, grass is always greener, like he's stuck at home, he misses that invigoration that he feels from traveling. Whereas on the other end of the spectrum, a full-time traveler named Catherine commented that she misses having plants, which is one of the things that I mentioned and I thought that was funny because it's the little things, you know, people might not think about not being able to have plants.  

Kristin:    00:13:58    But, um, I have a tip for you. If you're a traveler who loves plants and loves nature, and I don't know if I've ever given this as a travel tip, but one thing that I did when I left Costa Rica was I gave plants away. So you can actually sprout the seeds of any exotic fruits or vegetables that you find in your travel. So even if you're only in a place for a week that is still long enough to sprout seeds, but if you're somewhere for a month or so, or even more or a year, you can grow little trees and then you can give those plants away when you leave. So you can basically, instead of giving flowers to people or hey, you could do that too, you can grow fruits, vegetables, flowers, and then give them as gifts to your local friends or to your ex-pat friends when you move on to your next destination.  

Kristin:    00:14:55    So when I left Costa Rica to go nomadic full-time, I gave my friends some of this wild purple spinach that I got at a farmer's market. And then I started growing it in my backyard in Escazu. And then I also gave away durian trees, little baby durian trees that I sprouted from seeds also in my backyard that I got at the organic farmer's market in San Jose. So that's a really fun thing to do. And in my experience, gifting plants to people always puts a smile on their face and you know, it's good for the environment too. So if you love plants but you can't bring them with you, then you can give them away. And if you love having pets and you love animals, but you can't travel with your animals, then you can do something like Trusted Housesitters where you can travel and get free places to stay and take care of all sorts of animals, parrots, horses, birds, goats, cats like dogs, everything.  

Kristin:    00:16:01    So check out that website if you are an animal person. So every problem has a solution, right? Okay, we're gonna get into it soon. <laugh>, I just have a few shout outs today. Warm welcome to my newest Patreon patrons Christopher C, Brian G, and Dave B, and thank you to Christian, Eric, Pete, and Expose, and Blair who all bought me multiple coffees through the buy me a coffee link on badassdigitalnomads.com. An expose said that he thought I needed more than one. And, uh, spoiler alert, I do <laugh>, and uh, Blair said thank you. Your YouTube channels are super ways to learn more about travel and where to go. Thank you, Blair. Glad you are liking the videos. And oh, speaking of coffee, the lovely people at Don Pablo coffee in Miami sent me a box of their coffee too. I am very happy with all of these varieties of coffee that I've been tasting lately.  

Kristin:    00:17:04    I've been loving this organic Honduran dark roast that they sent me, and I even bought a coffee grinder so I can make a proper cup of it at home. And on the YouTube front, you notice that Blair said your YouTube channels are good ways to learn about travel. I'm relaunching my second channel youtube.com/digitalnomad Blair must have, uh, subscribed. So I announced this on the monthly YouTube live stream that happens on the last Sunday of every month on youtube.com/travelingwithKristin. So if you're interested in learning more about the technical aspects of the digital nomad lifestyle, Traveling with Kristin is more travel and living abroad related. But if you wanna know more about things like making money online tutorials for how to use certain types of travel apps or online business software, how to videos, geo arbitrage, offshore banking, second passports, like any sort of things like that, then subscribe to youtube.com/digitalnomad and we'll have some new videos coming soon for the first time in over a year.  

Kristin:    00:18:23    And my final thoughts on this topic, now that I've introduced it to you, this concept of sustaining a full-time travel lifestyle and staying sane, really and healthy while traveling, happy, healthy, this concept, bringing it all together, it reminds me a lot of Cal Newport's theory of slow productivity. So if you haven't heard of Cal Newport, he's a genius. <laugh>, no, I don't think he's a genius. I think he just does a lot of deep work. He works hard on a few different things. He's got these amazing books like Deep Work and So Good They Can't Ignore You. And I just bought his new books, Digital Minimalism and A World Without Email. I haven't gotten to them yet, but he also has a podcast called Deep Questions. So check that out, you know, diversify. Um, but he talks a lot about deep work versus shallow work and he writes about it a lot.  

Kristin:    00:19:27    And that makes me think about slow travel versus fast travel because just like deep and shallow work, you need both. Not only do you need both, but you, you can't avoid shallow work completely. I mean, there's always gonna be some things that you need to do to manage your life, and that's how it is with uh, you know, with slow travel and fast travel, it kind of brings everything full circle. You know, with this balance, this polarity, sometimes you gotta mark a bunch of stuff off of your to-do list. In our case, it's your bucket list, you know, you wanna see a new city or a country every single day. And then other times you want to savor the moment and take a deep work approach to travel, deep travel as it were. Sometimes you need quality time and a place, and sometimes you need quantity, diversity, excitement, and you just find that balance that works for you.  

Kristin:    00:20:27    So I'm just speaking off the cuff there, but that's some food for thought for you. Okay, so without further ado, let's get into it. Here are the top eight challenges that happen when you become a full-time traveler or digital nomad, and four ways to overcome them. You've seen the photos of people posing on the beach with their laptops in paradise, hashtag yolo hashtag one-way ticket, hashtag work from anywhere. But what they didn't show you were any of the struggles that they experienced before or after they snapped that Photoshop pick. I'm Kristin. I've been to more than 60 countries in the last 20 years, and in this video I'm gonna break down for you the top eight struggles of things that I've experienced personally or that I've witnessed in my globe trotting friends. And at the end, I'm gonna tell you how to overcome them. The first challenge of full-time travel is the logistical nightmare that it presents things that you probably take for granted on a day-to-day basis all of a sudden become a lot more difficult.  

Kristin:    00:21:39    This can be anything from mixing up your hotel bookings to flight delays and cancellations, trouble finding wifi issues with your Airbnb to where you're gonna go to do your laundry, how you're going to receive things in the mail, and then things like visa issues, work permits, passport stamps expiring and all sorts of things. And once you overcome all of those initial hurdles, some of them which become recurring problems throughout the years, you're going to get to the second challenge of full-time travel, which is just a general feeling of exhaustion. If you've ever felt like you needed a vacation from your vacation, a life of full-time travel can kind of feel like that. But just drawn out, and this depends on how fast you're traveling could be related to jet lag, navigating from point A to point B, meeting new people. It could come from just never having your own bed to sleep in.  

Kristin:    00:22:34    You just end up expending a lot of energy. And so managing your energy becomes increasingly important the longer you're in this lifestyle of full-time travel and being born out of issue Number two comes the third challenge of full-time travel. And this is the difficulty of establishing a daily routine. When you live at home, let's say you graduated from high school or college and you went into the workforce and you've had the same job ever since, your day-to-day routine gets so embedded that yes, sometimes it can get really boring, but also you end up doing a lot of things without even thinking about them. The order in which you wake up brush your teeth, what you eat for breakfast, how you get to work, all of these things become automated. But when you travel full-time in every new place, you have both the opportunity and the obligation of setting up a new routine.  

Kristin:    00:23:28    Not having a solid daily routine brings with it a a range of issues from just a general feeling of ungroundedness to a lack of productivity at work, weight gain from not cooking your meals at home, eating out too much. And then the longer you're traipsing the world, the closer you're going to get to the fourth challenge, which is loneliness. In recent years, this has gotten easier to manage with technology, with face time, with zoom, with messaging. But virtual interaction, as we all know by now, doesn't take the place of face-to-face interaction. Loneliness can definitely take a toll on your mental health, and then that also can contribute more to feeling tired and unmotivated and less productive. Now, a benefit of full-time travel is that you end up with friends all over the world, but that can kind of take the place of having really, really strong bonds with people from your hometown.  

Kristin:    00:24:26    That brings us to the fifth challenge of full-time travel. Dating. This topic probably merits its own video, but I've talked about this a lot with my full-time traveling friends, and it's definitely harder to establish a long-term relationship when you're fully nomadic. If you live in a country long-term, this can get easier. But when you have a fixed departure date, dating is really hard. You might meet more people and date more people, but the people that you date you might not see again, and you might only be able to hang out with them for as long as your visa stamp is good for. And then one thing that I definitely didn't expect when I became a full-time traveler is that I would experience FOMO. So typically you would experience fomo if you're maybe scrolling on social media. You see people having the time of their lives and you're stuck in your cubicle that day or snowed in at your house in Minnesota.  

Kristin:    00:25:23    But when you become nomadic, you can experience FOMO in a surprising number of ways. You might start experiencing FOMO from normal life, and you might start to miss those everyday regular life experiences that you don't really have when you're just traveling the world full time. So you can experience like a family and friends type of fomo, you can start to experience a career fomo, and then you can also experience FOMO related to what your other traveling friends are doing. Something bigger, better, more expensive that either you can't access or you can't afford or you can't get there. This is obviously a first world problem, but it is a thing when you travel full time. And then the seventh thing that you might experience, especially if you become an extreme minimalist traveler, is you might start to miss your stuff. Maybe your hobby is something crafts related, or you like gardening, painting, fixing up old cars, cooking and entertaining for people, and you have like all of your stuff in your house and your kitchen.  

Kristin:    00:26:29    Since I've set up a temporary home base in Miami, especially during the lockdowns, I would go for a walk around my neighborhood and I would always admire these people's giant garden in front of their house. And finally, after more of a year, year of being back in the US, I decided to sprout my own vegetables and grow them on my balcony. That's a little thing that I never would've considered before when I was traveling because what are you gonna do with the plant? You can't bring it with you. So you can't have plants, you can't have pets unless you can, uh, carry your dog with you, for example. And you can't have anything that's heavy that you can't put in your suitcase. So in one sense, this lightens the load, um, but it also limits your options, especially when it comes to pursuing hobbies that you might love.  

Kristin:    00:27:15    And the eighth thing that happens when you travel full-time is inevitably some form of travel burnout. The beauty of the time that we live in right now is that you can travel by yourself anywhere in the world with no return date, no end date. Humans, were not necessarily built for that. When you think back to the original nomads, thousands of years ago, they were traveling for a reason. They were looking for food, or they were trying to defend or conquer a territory, and they were also traveling as a community. But the difference with full-time travelers of today is that many travel by themselves. So if you're just traveling for fun or adventure or personal growth and you don't have that built-in community with you, it can feel like an overall sense of dissatisfaction, anxiety, unease, loneliness, sadness. You start to kind of lose the magic of what's happening around you and where you are. 

Kristin:    00:28:19    This is something that my friend Eric and I talked about in my podcast about what he observed in Anthony Bourdain's Eyes and the last episodes of his TV show that he had started to really lose that love of travel. And he probably was burnt out. I mean, I think that show was on for at least 10 or 12 years, and he was traveling 250 plus days per year. And this kind of travel burnout can be very insidious. It can sneak up on you in a lot of different ways. It doesn't necessarily have to be that you hit the wall like in a professional burnout or physical burnout. It can be something that comes along over the course of months or even years. So how can you prevent or overcome these challenges? If you are traveling full-time, I have four tips for you. So the first thing is to figure out why you're traveling in the first place.  

Kristin:    00:29:13    It does sound exciting to just book a one-way ticket to Thailand and never look back. But if you are going on this trip with no end date in mind and no real, uh, goals or intentions for why you're traveling, then you can start to get lost along the way. So it's really important to think about why you're doing this, why you want to accomplish this lifestyle and what you wanna get out of it so that you have some sort of way to measure if you're going off course. The second thing is to recognize that travel in and of itself is not going to solve any problems. Traveling to solve your problems is just like getting married or having a baby to save a relationship. It's usually not going to work. Socrates says, why do you wonder that globe trotting does not help you? Seeing that you always take yourself with you.  

Kristin:    00:30:06    The reason which set you wandering is at your heels. There will always be ups and downs. You might feel lonely. Sometimes you might feel fomo. Sometimes you might start to think that the grass is always greener, but it's really just life. So as long as you can roll with the punches, persevere through the ups and downs, and know that this is not a solution for everything, this is just an activity that you're doing for a specific purpose, then that's gonna make the journey a lot easier and more fun. My third tip is to slow down by slowing down or even stopping or taking a break from travel. All of this can help you sustain a travel lifestyle longer. If you've found that your experience with full-time travel has come full circle, it's okay to call it quits. You can always go back home and you can always change your mind and start traveling again later.  

Kristin:    00:31:00    And my fourth tip is to prioritize human connection. If you're traveling really fast and you're not integrating with the culture, you're not meeting locals and you're not focusing on human relationships, you're gonna feel alone and you're gonna start to get a lot of those other symptoms that we talked about earlier. So wherever you are, really try to plant some roots there. Try to get to know the local community and also try to make friends with other travelers so that you can meet with them around the world. Also, remember your friends from home. Remember your friends from childhood. Remember your family members. Just because you're going out and traveling and having this new experience, don't forget where you came from. So know your why. Recognize that life is life and travel won't solve everything. Slow down or stop when you need to and focus on your friends and family.  

Kristin:    00:31:53    And don't take this video as an excuse to not travel because that's not what this is about. Full-time solo or nomadic travel is an experience that our ancestors could have only dreamed of in their wildest dreams. They probably could have never conceived of what we are able to do today. And so seize that freaking day, go out there and travel, have those experiences, have that fun, but just know when it's time to take a break. I'll leave you with a quote by Seneca, one of my favorite stoic philosophers, and he says that which you seek to live well is found everywhere. The good life is found everywhere. The good life is found through travel, the good life is found in you. Are there any struggles that I left off this list that you've experienced, or any solutions you've found that you can share with us? Let us know in the comments below and subscribe to my channel for more videos that help you work online and travel the world.  

Kristin:    00:33:01    Kristin, here, I hope you all laughed and learned with me today in this analysis of the eight challenges of full-time travel and four solutions to overcome them. If you like today's episode, please leave a review over at lovethepodcast.com/digitalnomad, a lot of time, effort, and love. Go into every episode of Badass Digital Nomads podcast and reading a review like the one I saw this morning from Sophie and the UK. Makes it all worth it. And what do you think is the hardest part about a full-time travel lifestyle? Is it loneliness, making friends, staying productive? Head over to my community page on YouTube to vote in the poll, and also in our group, Badass Digital Nomads. A link to those in the show notes. And if there's one thing that you might have noticed was missing from this list related to finances, that's for a reason. I'm going to cover the financial aspect of full-time travel in another episode. So stay tuned, and if you're looking for help relocating to a foreign country in the next year or so, send me a message to info@orbirelocation.com, O R B I S, like Spain, for a little strategy session or some logistical support. Now, get out there, seize that day, and see you next week.