The Hardest Part Of Traveling (That No One Talks About)

Traveling. Look it up the Internet. Go on Google, enter it in the search bar. Everything you find about it will talk about the beauty of it, about why you should travel coupled with a long list of reasons stating how great the world is to back that statement. The different numerous ways it changes one as a person because of all the wonders you experience. They say it’s like magic.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that’s a lie or deny that fact because traveling is an extraordinary thing. I’ve gone out in the world myself and experience its wonders, the great people and different cultures from all corners of the world has indeed helped restored my faith in humanity.

But you see, what I’m trying to get at is that no one really talks about the hard days while on the road. You know, the bad experiences, or how plans don’t always go as imagined, or how setbacks arise. People beautify it.

Everyone sings about the good days and paints this perfect picture of traveling which then everyone else who hears it believes and expects it to be like. You are not always smiling while on the road, that’s a fact. And it’s okay. You don’t have to hide it.

It’s okay to have a bad day and feel down while on the road. As magical as traveling is, sometimes that magic wears thin and you find yourself in a really difficult situation that wipes away your gorgeous smile for days, leaving you wondering what went wrong. How the one thing that’s supposed to renew your spirit, is instead tearing you apart.

There’s no denying that the feelings you get while out in the world, out of your comfort zone are raw. They are the rawest forms of feelings that play on every single one of your heart strings. It’s hard to not get affected by them.

You see, this is why it’s not so much about the good days of traveling that everyone talks about that help you grow as a person.

I mean, it’s easy to be standing in awe of the mighty Grand Canyon in Nevada or be blown away by the unique colours while snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef down in Cairns. But how about the time you were lost in some lowly lit alley at 4am in Cambodia or about the time you missed the last flight out of a remote Pacific island where you had to wait a couple days for the next one?

And surely not forgetting the time you fell for someone you met along the way, hard. How you saw a future with this person, one filled with many adventures and journeys. But then realized it’s nearly impossible to ever be together because you guys have lives to get back to and distance was going to be a problem. Or maybe it was just about being too afraid to take the chance.

It’s really easy to talk about the good days of traveling. But the hard days of traveling although bitter, are the ones that should be taken note of.

That’s because the hard days are the ones that really change you.

They teach you about having expectations, about controlling your emotions and knowing that no matter how carefully and perfectly you have everything planned in your head, anything and everything can happen. They teach you to expect the unexpected, that nothing is certain. That uncertainty will always be present and you just got to make the most of each day.

To take whatever comes with a smile no matter how hard the day might be.

They teach you about perspectives, how a rough situation if seen from a different perspective might not seem that bad after all.

This is why these are the days people should be talking more about, because these days shape us. They mold us into who we are today, so we are better able to face tomorrow.

Traveling is not always easy, not always fancy. But life’s an adventure, remember that. So embrace the difficult days and learn the lessons that come with it, knowing that the best days are soon to come, if only you keep moving forward.