How to Stay Motivated While Traveling
Tricks and Motivation
The ability to stay motivated while traveling is a practiced skill with a few tricks involved. Traveling is inheritly tiring. Yes, it’s a revitalizing adventure with new experiences on each of the four horizons, but the human body isn’t an unlimited battery of energy. Staying motivated on the road is challenging, especially since travelers are always overstimulated.
There are several tricks to staying motivated during long term travel, all of them allowing for a journey to morph into a sustainable lifestyle.
- Talk to Locals
- Talk to Expats
- Keep a Geographic List
- Take Time Off
- Factor in Reboot Time
- Find Local Comfort
These techniques can ensure a person stays motivated while traveling, avoiding burnout and continually renewing their interest in the world.
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Talk to Locals
One of the best ways to recharge personal batteries is through socialization with new people. In most of the world, locals are the best people to meet. They are engaging, knowledgeable and tremendously helpful in the vast majority of situations.
If a person ever feels lost or unsure of anything during their journey, speaking to a half dozen locals generally clears things up. This is a learned skill, since it requires a fair amount of patience and verification. A lot of first world citizens are accustomed to finding clear answers online immediately. But sometimes, questions are situation-specific or a person is in a part of the world which hasn’t received much online attention.
In these cases, speaking to locals can help a lot. Once three or four locals give the same instructions or advice independently, it should be considered mostly-accurate information. Be cautious about following just one person’s advice without verifying it elsewhere.
Aside from clearing up general confusion, speaking to locals is also an excellent way of getting motivated in a new location. They generally know all the secret spots of their hometowns, the events happening in pubs, the secret jungle parties and the best place to get obscure traditional meals.
Talk to Expats
The absolute greatest resource for all travelers are other travelers. There is no group of people more considerate, helpful or forthright than vagabonding travelers. The advice they provide is universally helpful. Better yet, the advice is usually tailored for new people visiting an area, rather than someone who has lived there over a lifetime.
Expats tend to make knowing the local area a point of pride. If anyone can provide excitement and motivation regarding a new place, it is the people who have adopted it as their desired home or destination.
Additionally, travelers are very aware of energy levels and often provide extra local advice on how to stay motivated while traveling, such as secret saunas, scenic beaches or comfortable hotels.
Keep a Geographic List
When traveling, a fair portion of time is spent planning out a journey. It is a good idea to write down the things a person wishes to do prior to arrival.
But those lists should remain intact and growing upon arrival. Whenever you hear about a new location or activity you’re interested, place it in your list with an accurate description. These lists are always growing and often gain new items to encourage revisiting old haunts.
This method helps people stay motived while traveling by continuing exploration of familiar areas and secondary trips back to see what was missed the first time around. It is furthermore very useful to other travelers who might be heading the opposite direction.
The best apps I use for making travel routes include Waze, Maps.me and Google Offline Maps
Take Time Off
Though it might seem odd, traveling doesn’t always have to be a fast-paced rush. In fact, it’s usually far better when it isn’t.
A person trying to cram a thousand activities into every day will inevitably burn themselves out. This tends to happen much faster since everything is new and unfamiliar when going to a new area.
Spending some time resting, reading and staying put is extremely helpful. While traveling tends to cultivate the soul, rest restores the body and mind.
This time is particularly useful for figuring out next steps. Taking time off from daily wandering allows a traveler to reprioritize energy and points of interest in the following weeks.
Never forget that travel burnout does happen, especially to new travelers. Taking a minute to recover is more than acceptable, it’s vital to health and future enjoyment.
Factor in Reboot Time
When planning a trip, it is important to set aside several hours a day for simple rest and recalibration. If a person plans to do six things in a single day, they’re prone to rush through every itinerary item and not fully experience any of it.
Planning a trip is inevitably going to have unexpected events pop up. Bus rides might take longer than anticipated, you might oversleep one day or dinner might have been so delicious that the evening should be spent lounging instead of dancing. In all of these cases, reboot time is necessary. These are a few hours factored in each day as reboot time or “wiggle room.”
Reboot time is a huge feature of travel motivation. It ensures that burnout generally doesn’t happen and allows for more strategizing when plans change.
Find Local Comfort
When my father traveled to China, he was working there for two weeks. During that time, there was no period which brought him more relief than his discovery of a recently-constructed McDonalds. After weeks of eating foods he considered outlandish, it was a boon to have a meal he was familiar with.
Traveling is constant exposure to new experiences. This is fine on its own, but people generally need a few things to return to in order to feel whole.
When a person starts to feel overwhelmed on their journey, consider looking for local comforts for restorative purposes. This can be a spa, a gym, a chain restaurant, a hammock or a beer with a fellow countryman. Tapping back into reminders of home is an excellent method for staying motivated while traveling.
Regardless of the actual activity, having local comforts can help a person remain motivated while traveling.
Keeping Up Motivations
Staying motivated while traveling is a surprisingly tricky business. There are already numerous new and interesting experiences at a person’s fingertips, so what’s lacking isn’t novelty. Instead, the secret to maintaining travel motivation is pacing, rest and factoring in recovery time.
The world will be there tomorrow. Take a breath, glance at your highest priorities, chat with someone and take a breath once more.
Trying to stay motivated on the road? Read adventures from the Leftfade Trails blog.
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