Why Long Term Travel Turns You Into a Weirdo

For the last 2 months, I’ve been traveling again full time and getting back into the flow of my pre-pandemic long term travel life. It feels amazing beyond words, and I hadn’t realized just how much I missed it until I got back into it. Meeting amazing people at every turn, seeing new places, discovering new cultures, and exploring old towns and natural wonders – this is what I live for. Oh, and that sense of pure and authentic freedom? My favorite feeling in the world.

Since I’ve been on the road, I feel like I’ve come home, ironically. As cliche as it sounds, I feel like I am truly my authentic and most whole self when traveling full time. This is my element, and it’s never been more clear. But something else has become really clear over the last few weeks. The more one dives into the world of full time travel, the less connected to “normal life” we become.

I feel like an alien in my own country and among my peers. In social settings that resemble normality, I am incredibly awkward. I never feel comfortable staying in one place, in fact it gives me extreme anxiety and I have long term travel to blame. If you can relate, we can be friends or travel buddies in no time. Here’s why I am certain that long term travel turns you into a weirdo, because I know I can’t be alone here.

Why Long Term Travel Turns You Into a Weirdo

1. You Become Utterly Unrelatable

Long term travel is an alternative lifestyle in and of itself. I have no bills, no address, no fixed phone number, friends group, or routine. Sometimes it’s hard to relate to what most of the people my age do and go through in their day to day because I don’t live it myself.

As Lauren from Never Ending Footsteps said, “Long-term, continual travel, for years on end, guarantees you’ll be the least relatable person on the planet by the end of it. And it’s not until you experience true loneliness that you become kind of obsessed with it.”. I honestly couldn’t agree more.

I don’t have a tv, favorite restaurant in my “city”, or any sense of fashion because everything I own is stuffed into a carry on suitcase. When these things come up in conversation, I honestly don’t even know what to say.

2. You Won’t Understand Any Cultural References

When traveling, I don’t have time (or any desire honestly) to keep up with pop culture, watch any tv series, or keep up to date with the hottest trends. When I sit down with my American friends and listen to them gush over Game of Thrones or The Real Housewives, it’s like hearing Chinese for me. I have no contribution, and sometimes a reference just goes way over my head. “You haven’t seen that?! How did you not see that?”, becomes a common reaction to my uncultured existence.

The truth is, I have no idea what the Kardashians are doing. I don’t know half of the slang people are using back home anymore. Or why we are suddenly super into house plants or Dyson vacuum cleaners. I’m clueless, and that makes for a lot of “insert cricket noises” moments at the dinner table back home.

3. You Are Behind on All the Gossip

When you do finally go home and catch up with friends, they will be excited to update you on the latest happenings that you’ve missed. This excitement slowly winds down into frustration when they realize you are actually about 7 million and a half years behind, and that they’d need to start their story with what happened in 2014 for you to understand.

Eventually they just kind of give up, and I don’t blame them. I’ve missed so many of my friends’ major life milestones like weddings, baby showers, graduations and more. I wasn’t there for the hard times, and I certainly wasn’t around for the shared good times. There is a part that feels some guilt and fomo regarding always being gone. There’s definitely an even big part that just feels out of the loop entirely.

4. Telling Someone Where You Live is a Long-winded Speech

For most people answering the question “Where do you live?” is a single word answer. For travelers, it becomes a moment of panic where you consider what it means to even have a home. Do I tell them the address on my credit card bills? Do I tell them where I keep all my stuff, which is currently stuffed into a suitcase? Or do I go down the route of explaining that I work online and don’t live anywhere, in an ongoing aimless wander around the world, existing rootlessly and chaotically? Who knows.

5. You Don’t Own Any “Stuff”

When people ask me what I want for Christmas, my brain goes blank. I’ve existed for so long without a home, the idea of buying stuff is entirely foreign. The very idea of accumulating more things, that need a home or take space, are so out of my reality it’s comical.

When I go shopping with friends, I know damn well I won’t buy anything because everything I own is currently stuffed into a 20 pounds carry on suitcase and backpack with no room to spare. The pleasure of buying furniture and home goods is also something I have not experienced in a long time.

6. You Spend Way too Much Time Alone

Long term travel, namely the solo type, means that by default you spend a shit ton of time alone. Even if you start this journey as an extreme extrovert or someone who hates being alone, somewhere along your journey you’ll come to love your own company. You have no other option.

Once you spend so many days with no one but your own thoughts, and really get to know your inner world so deeply, you become kind of obsessed with it. Making all decisions for yourself, based on your own whims, spending quality time lost in your own thoughts with no distractions – it becomes addicting. After a while I always miss having alone time, no matter who I’m with. Even my boyfriend.

This extended alone time has turned me into a weirdo in social gatherings. I can no longer travel in groups of more than 4 or 6 people max without experiencing extreme anxiety. It’s nothing personal, I’ve just gotten way too used to my own vibe that when there are too many energies in the mix I can no longer “hear” myself over it and I begin to lose myself a bit. And that stresses me out.

Somehow this anxiety does not apply to meeting and hanging out in huge groups of other travelers. I can meet people on the road, and within 5 minutes spend the whole day with them and feel totally at ease. I think it’s because as travelers, we can relate to each other. We “get” each other and I don’t feel the same social pressures and judgements as I would doing a 20 person party trip with my own friends. For me now, that’s just too hectic.

7. You Have No 5 Year Plan

When discussing normal adult topics with close friends like when we will buy a home, when we hope to get married, how many kids we will have, my brain is more empty than the Sahara Desert. If asked about my plans for the future I may respond with “I bought a flight to South America for next week” and consider that sufficient.

Having no sense of future orientation is a surefire way to get some confused looks and eye rolls from people. After all our whole society is built on the concept of working towards our futures. As a traveler, I left that concept behind years ago and haven’t bothered to look back. I live in the moment, and make as little plans as possible. I can’t say whether how I live is right, unstable, or just crazy. But I do know it’s different and I don’t blame people for judging or not understanding.

8. You Embrace Weirdo Life

And finally, long-term travel turns you into a weirdo because you like being a weirdo. I may never fit into society the way I feel like I’m supposed to, but I’m quite happy with the life I live and regret nothing. Travel and the experiences I’ve had are worth all the things I gave up. Plus, life’s too short to not get a little weird.