Featured image by Morre Christophe via Unsplash.
The more I travel, the giddier I get at the thought of traveling. A trip can only be half-planned at best – you can book your tickets, make reservations for the attractions you want to see, and read TripAdvisor reviews until 3 in the morning – but there will always be a few things you can’t truly plan for exactly.
For me, a good part of the joy of traveling is meeting people from other parts of the world. At first glance, the only thing you really have in common with these folks are that the idea to travel to the place you’re in occurred to you both around the same time – and voila, here you are.
Before you know it, you start chatting and realize how many things you agree on despite the fact that you come from different cultures and maybe even speak different native languages.
And then there are the handful of people I’m fortunate enough to know from back home who are always planning their next trip. Here are 11 reasons why people who travel are my favorite people.
1. They always have good stories
You won’t hear “this one time, at band camp” too many times when you’re swapping stories at a hostel. The stories travelers tell are obviously more likely to include an exotic setting and a heavier dose of weird, which is just the way perfect happy hour conversation should be. Hell yeah, I wanna hear about how you missed a flight because you got drafted onto a Mardi Gras float.
2. Their budgeting skills are totally lit
It’s mindblowing how long backpackers can sustain a life abroad on a fixed amount of money, and they’re awesome at pointing out how much more affordable travel can actually be than your life at home. Surviving off street food, making the best out of 19-hour layovers and bunking with a room full of strangers is well worth the tradeoff of waking up, asking if anyone wants to see the Colosseum with you and setting out to do the damn thing.
3. They handle stress like seasoned pros
The first rule of traveling is that shit will happen when you travel. If you travel often, you’ve accepted this and know that it’s never the end of the world. I’ve seen people deal with lost passports, Dengue virus and missed flights and still be good sports about it.
4. They kick ass at pub trivia
Currencies, histories, political systems, customs, languages, geography, Eat Pray Love – they’ve got it handled. Just don’t ask about sports.
5. They know how to prioritize
They may skip happy hour after work to save money, but it’s only because they know seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa will be a more memorable life experience and they’re saving up for it.
See? Memories.
6. They can start a conversation with just about anybody
There’s this little catch-22 about traveling. If you go with someone, you’ll probably start to drive each other nuts 48 hours into the trip and want to branch out. If you travel solo, you’ll want to branch out.
Either way, making friends abroad is awesome because most people are an open book. Everyone’s got a story to tell and grew up half a world away. You’re in the way of people you wouldn’t have crossed paths with at home and it’s totally rad.
And let’s face it, sometimes you’re standing in line at customs and just need to strike up a conversation to keep yourself out of boredom’s way. I’ve made single serving friends at baggage claims, taxi stand lines, on 10-hour bus rides, in hostel dorms and on walking tours.
7. They’re almost fearless
They don’t have an absence of fear, just the ability to shrug it off and do it anyway. My favorite quote about this is “buy the ticket, take the ride” by Hunter S. Thompson. Just sign up for the adventure even if you have no idea what you’re in for! I mean, use common sense (get vaccinated, stay away from the happy mushroom shakes), but do it.
8. They mean what they say
Most people are full of somedays. As Nomadic Matt says, he can tell that Jessica will never make it to Ireland.
Travelers, on the other hand, can’t wait to jetset! That’s probably how you met them in the first place. They’re not content to wait it out until their retirement, they want the Mount Batur sunrise hike and the Death Road ride to Maccu Pichu.
I’ve met people in the midst of so many fabulous life transitions. There was a 50-something woman who was taking a yearlong sabbatical to travel the world, several Brits and Aussies in transit between moving to either country, and countless others who just said “fuck it” and bought a ticket.
9. They understand what they have
Experiencing other places lends perspective, which helps highlight the best part of what home is for you. Talking to people of different backgrounds frees you from the homogeneity of the environment in which you grew up. It also wakes you up to both the difference and the similarities of places across the ocean. A hangout near the West Bank once felt familiar as a Midwestern dive bar to me.
I was lucky to grow up in the tech capital of the world, but I wouldn’t have known it listening to my middle school classmates complain that there was never anything to do (classic teenager move). Now that I’ve been to some seriously rural places, I can appreciate that there’s plenty to do here – and that if you’re bored, you’re boring.
10. They know swears in multiple languages
I think it’s important to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you in the local language of every country you travel to. If you’re lucky enough to meet someone whose native language is different from your own, you’ll often find that they’ll happily teach you slang and curse words that will light up your vocabulary like the Vegas strip.
11. They’re simultaneously confident and modest
I remember the first time I arrived in Paris. I’d never been to a non-English speaking country before or used a Euro. I quickly figured out that being alone in this situation was a little bit terrifying. Luckily, the friend I was meeting came to my rescue with an impressive level of confidence, since he’d been living in France for a few months.
Honestly, once you’ve captained your own trip once, you fall into a real “I’ve got this” mindset (see #3). You’ll quickly figure out how to be courteous to strangers, not to blast your political opinions into a fresh conversation with someone you don’t know, and that you should guard your passport like it’s the last unicorn.
On the flipside, the more you travel, the more humbled you are. It’s like a rabbit hole you fall into that exposes just how much you don’t know about the world, and how much there is to still learn. I think this is part of the addiction, the curiosity and the desire to learn. That’s pure modesty right there.
If you’re curious to see where I’ve been, here’s my travel map.
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