What is long-term travel?
Every time I travel somewhere for a longer period of time, say, over 3 months, I hit a point when I get the distinct feeling that, from not understanding a thing about the population and country I’m currently inhabiting when I had just arrived, I suddenly and very unconsciously start to adjust and somehow fall in line with it.
What I mean, is that although I still do not understand the first thing about the way of thinking, the daily rituals, the manners and traditions of any given population (I believe one could maybe succeed in that by staying in a country for a lifetime. And I say maybe.), at some point I simply start to get used to them if you like.
It can simply be not feeling comfortable wearing tank tops in China or having a Venti Starbucks coffee in the USA because everything less is just a sip.
It’s tiny things. Adjustments. Small shifts in your daily behavior.
Then it’s a budge to the way you think about others, your daily routine, the world outside the country, politics, your hobbies, the places you’d like to visit during a vacation, the activities you do with friends and how you view and establish relationships, dress code and manners, all the way to the reason of our existence and how it’s all going to end.
Before you know it,-and this is important; you only acknowledge the change once it has already been happening for a while- you adjusted. You “Chineseized” or “Americanized” yourself just a little.
It’s part of you now. Forever.
It’s a gem you’ll carry for the rest of your life.
This is one of the main reasons I find slow traveling and long-term traveling so fundamental.
The same goes with populations, which is nothing more complicated than a high number of individuals located in the same fraction of time and cornered by the same imaginary borders.
Individuals with some things in common. Things they inevitably share with you that can become a part of your individuality, a gem in your pouch.
It’s an exchange currency this gem, something you can and should use to make yourself and others richer.
Be brave and proud about it, because it is one more step closer to understanding yourself and others.
In this section, I will discuss all the different types and possibilities of long-term and slow traveling, why it’s so different from visiting, how we can do it on a budget, and all the pros and perks of traveling long term.
And I said only pros and perks because really, there’s no downside to it.
Ready to take off now?