Are travelers just running away?
I’ve considered this question before, right at the beginning of the journey that I started five years ago. The one that I’m still technically on:
Are travelers running away from or towards something?
I was 26 back then, fresh out of a long-term relationship, just out of a steady job, and all I had was a carry-on backpack and no return ticket home.
I believe that the answer, at least for me, is that I was doing both at the same time. But either way, I was running.
Over the years, I have seen people come into the traveling lifestyle and go back out of it. Most of the people who started around the time that I did got tired. Many of them only travel a few times per year now, and for much shorter periods.
I have burned out from time to time and just wanted a little bit of time in one place, but for the most part I cannot sit still. Even when I am at home, I need to be doing something, whether it’s working, going for a walk, doing the dishes, or drinking water.
Any kind of downtime is torturous to me. I don’t have the capacity to be lazy. I never did.
If you have been with me for a while, you will notice that I have announced that I moved to Berlin. And then I was almost never here. I signed a lease for an apartment I am almost never in.
Oh yes, I am most definitely running.
Over the past couple of months, I stopped to ask myself why. Like any addiction, it is a form of escape, and movement has become mine. But why?
What am I trying to escape from?
Many wonderful things, when consumed in moderation, can be healthy. Like a glass of wine, chocolate, exercise, and healthy fats.
Travel is, too. It can be incredibly empowering.
But I also don’t want to abuse it. I don’t want to sink into an addiction without asking myself hard questions about why.
And so from now until December I am doing something I have never done before: staying in one place.
If we were to have had a conversation about it in the past, I would have told you that’s what I was doing around this time last year when I was in California. But I was still going on little trips all the time: to Northern California, Canada, and Idaho.
My then-boyfriend was taking me to the airport constantly. I wasn’t really sitting still.
I don’t fear forming deep connections with people. In fact I long for it.
Plus, I love the city of Berlin, and I’ve gone through a lot of effort to be here.
It’s time to sit still for a little while. It’s time to ask myself why everyone else burns out, but I don’t.
It’s time to ask: What am I running towards? What am I running away from?
And until I have a clear answer, it’s time to stay put. Even though everything in me is fighting this decision, I’m doing it so that I have a clear enough ‘why’.
Because there’s nothing wrong with running, but it is only healthy in moderation – something I’ve always been spectacularly bad at.
Berlin, I’m stoked to hang out with you for a while. It’s long overdue.
What do you think? Is traveling a form of escapism? If so, is there anything wrong with that?
Cynthia says
I feel most are actively rejecting a system that demands they anchor themselves to one place and drown themselves in debt. Normies can’t see outside of their own perspective, or are hugely invested in a system they may unconsciously dislike, so they lash out against travelers who flaunt their lifestyles of freedom versus their self-inflicted debt servitude to “the man”.
Travelers are often searching for, or are aligning themselves with a life that resonates with who they are as people. So I wouldn’t call it running away from the universally accepted way things “have to be”.
Sam says
“Travelers are often searching for, or are aligning themselves with a life that resonates with who they are as people.”
I love that. It’s exactly how I feel. Running away from a lifestyle and environment that doesn’t fit me and running toward one that does.
GG says
Enjoy Berlin! It has gone through so many transformations, never dreamed it would become the neat place it is now. Hope you find the answers you are looking for! (when running everything is a blur, so not a bad idea to stop and see things come into focus!).
Best wishes
Lee says
I asked myself those questions too. It’s been three years for me living the travelling lifestyle. The answer I come up with usually depends on the mood I’m in and how generous I feel towards myself. If I take a positive perspective, it would be that I have the ability to live like this, unlike most, and I have managed to shake off the materialistic chains that keep so many bound to an office/mortgage/car. Being able to change city/country on a monthly basis means I’m “living the dream”, and if friends or family can’t appreciate that it must be because they are bitter about their own choices or for older family simply that digital nomadism is not of their era and they struggle to comprehend it. It’s tempting to view others not doing the same as sheep who bought into a system without questioning it, or who are driven only by status, pride and materialism, but I don’t think that’s always true either. If I’m feeling less generous, I sometimes wonder if it’s my shyness or feeling different in some profound sense to others that keeps me perpetually terrified of being in an office, with a host of people I did not choose to be with, for 50% of my waking life. It scares the hell out of me. Even though travelling is often inherently social, it’s also inherently transitory. If you land with a group of people you don’t like, you leave, if you want alone time, you get it. Also, the concept of the adventure ending and it being time to grow up as it were, the party ending. The motivation of my life suddenly being family or possessions and not adventures and hedonism. If anything, that would be what I’m scared of and running from. Travelling can be exasperating lonely longterm sometimes, even the short term interactions in social phases can be quite hollow over time as you repeat the same cycle and same conversations, only to leave again. It’s fine for months, but years? It can be hard watching friends and family have more meaningful relationships and I do think I’m making a sacrifice of love and more profound relationships. But I guess I’m still at the stage where I’d sacrifice those things just so I could know another country. The good things travelling is giving me still are outweighing the bad. I imagine the returns are diminishing however and eventually the balance will shift somewhat. Maybe not to a completely static lifestyle, but towards something more fixed, where some more permanent bonds could flourish.
Kristin says
I, too, am aiming for the middle, I think. I never want to stop wandering but I do want to have some stability too, and I want my purpose to be pure. I don’t just want it to be hedonistic like it has been in the past, but rather a way to reconnect with nature, or to work on a project that I think has a benefit beyond myself. I agree, an office will not suit me again in this life.
GG says
Hey Kristin. After seeing what you just wrote…. If it is worth anything, you won’t and will not be the only nomad to have a home base, stopping/stability point, and the beauty of it is, the home base can move too as you “move” in your life! I don’t usually provide links but hope this is useful (unless you read this already then oh well… 🙂 http://gigigriffis.com/do-digital-nomads-have-home-bases/). It is so admirable how you want everything you do to be for only worthy/productive reasons and help others (and so badly want to make sure you are giving back, not just taking… which you have to do for a freelance German visa anyhow, ha! :)). I really hope your leading tours idea works out, it is a great way for you to evolve (and grow the business too, have to make a living), connect with people like you said, and give back, literally. People will love it. You really have started the giving back through this whole blog thing. Berlin is a great, progressive, and especially artsy city to bring out the best in your art side. Wish you luck again and keep growing (it is good you have the continual urge to do so, needing to slow down at times), but don’t be too hard on yourself! You deserve some kind of reward for what you have already accomplished.
Kristin says
Thanks for that GG!
KenBon says
I’m not sure if I’m trying to run away from something. Recently I keep on having this thoughts of “if not now, then when?” I’m turning 30 soon and have been working for the past 6 years. I travel twice yearly for a week trip. There’s a voice in me telling myself now is the time to be “crazy”. I always have this dream of wanting to try travelling for a period of 1-2 months. And I feel like I wanted to take a break from my current work too. I’m yet to settle down with mortages, marriage, etc. Now feel like such a suitable time for me. But I do wonder if I’m trying to run away from my job?
Kristin says
I think it IS important to honor your goal of traveling and to take a break. Very important! Especially if everything in you is telling you that now is the time. I’m just wondering if I went too far in the other extreme.
Catherine says
I think it’s great that you have self awareness. We should all have this; the ability to look inward and know ourselves well. Maybe part of Staying put experience is to sit with those feeling of relentless and just allow then and see what comes from you (feelings) of staying in one location. More learning will come from it and it may help you have great self realizations. Enjoy Berlin.
Kristin says
Thank you! Yes the intention is just to see what doing the opposite creates, or at least when I move, to do so with intention.
travelenjoylive says
Hi Kristin,
I feel kind of the same. Running away from a “safe/boring” life all the time. Trying to live like “normal” people doesn’t work out for me. BUT I try to see it from the bright side- It is much better to fear to stay at one place than never try to do what you love, never see the world just because you are afraid to step out of the comfort “safe/ boring” life. And I know lots of people around me (in 30s!) who don’t dare, because they are shit scared of everything. And I feel pity for them, not for you.
Kristin says
Thank you. I think both extremes are damaging – the fear of ever going anywhere and the addiction to always be leaving and escaping, but it’s s nice to hear so many perspectives on the matter that remind me that this lifestyle is a gift I worked hard for and there’s nothing wrong with it!
Ashley Young says
Well ! They all have same problem. I don’t know wheather it’s even a problem or not though ! :p Let’s call it habit ! All the travelers out there has same habit ! I have quite a few people around me who love to travel. They never settled down for some certain time in a certain place. I know them well, we talk as a friend ! From my point of view and from personal experience from them,it’s neither like escaping from anything nor finding for something ! It’s just a mix of addiction and habit ! And why so serious ?! They are kind of cool human 😀 You are a cool human ! You guys get to know many many things , many culture many people everything. You don’t have a rilegion or a culture. Every culture every religeon is your’s ! That’s nice ! Kind of universal ! 🙂
nora says
I ran, because I felt like s**t. I did not realise it at that time, but I felt the powerful need to be moving, moving, moving because staying still would be like dying. I felt I was more alive than ”the sheep”, I lived the true and full live and I hold some sort of a secret to happiness. I lived for the moment, not for the purpose.
At the age of 28 I asked myself what is wrong with my life, If I feel I am alive only when I am moving and why my life at my home felt like nothing. Now, five years later, I have finally achieved the feeling the purpose in my life, and realised why I felt like s**it before – when I was moving, I did not need to face the reasons, so for me, traveling was a way to escape my problems. But it was not a long time solution for me.
I still travel multiple times a year, but I am no longer a nomad. I want to point out, that we all have our own reasons – this was only my experience.
Kristin says
I think that’s been true for me as well at certain points in my life. If I could keep running then I didn’t have to face real problems.
Mary Lee says
Hi Kristin!
I’ve been following you for awhile now and you are one of the major reasons I am traveling. I am old enough to be your mom but your journey and zest for life and what the world holds totally resonates with who I have always been. I was (finally) propelled into traveling by a series of unplanned events—became ill on a trip to Australia and ended up with a job offer, worked hard to move back to the States and then lost that job abruptly and uncomfortably. That was my introduction to forced retirement and my ability to finally travel or wander or run. For lack of any better plan than my urge or ‘gypsy gene’ and having encountered your blog online, I got going. I spent the first year and a half doing mostly travel with a few trips ‘home’ to see my children and couch surf with my dear dear friend who had put up with me and my Skyping for time together.
I’ve spent considerable time trying to answer the very question you posed. So I stopped. I returned to be with him. To make a life. But…
I soul-searched so much to figure out why I was traveling that at his behest I’ve seen a psychologist to help answer the question. It demands an answer because I feel separated from the usual world of the landed including family, friends and any acquaintances who state their envy but can’t fathom why or how I do it. My gentleman friend could no longer deal with the idea that I hadn’t ‘landed’ (his term) and recently gave me the ‘we need to talk’ talk and her name is …). My psychologist says running isn’t always running away from. It’s also running to. I cherish that thought as it has helped to soothe the loneliness and guilt of living this life that energizes me, keeps me healthy and young and is never boring. My older son said I’ve never looked happier!
So—what next? Well I’ve decided that I’m a great woman, an intelligent, brave and vital woman who has miles to go before she can’t any more. And a woman that is inspired by you and comforted by your candor about your life journey too. And as luck would have it, my gf from my job in a Australia is meeting me in Berlin to catch several cruises all around Norway and up to Spitsbergen. (I’ve always loved seeing what I refer to as the ends of the earth. I actually cruised the Amazon 6 months pregnant.) It’s not as rugged as your Patagonia backpacking but after all, it will be my 68th birthday.
So thank you so much for listening to me unload and even more, for being you and being out there. I’ll be reviewing again all your info on Berlin to be ready and hope to see you for a coffee!
Cheers,
ML
Kristin says
Hi Mary Lee! How amazing that you’ve decided to do what you love and what is in your heart even if it’s not necessarily viewed as ‘normal’ by society. I’ve come to find that I also just want to roam right now and I don’t need to apologize for it or change. I just have to look for relationships in people who have the same lifestyle and desires, and it’s all good! Enjoy your trip and let me know when you’ll be in Berlin. I might be there!