Addicted to the Escape: The Downside of Long-Term Travel

Photo: Lucas_B

Reannon Muth experiences an intervention for her transport addiction.

Your lifestyle is sad as well as empty.

Youre blank out upon carrying tighten friends as well as genuine relationships.

I felt similar to Id usually sat down to an intervention. Only instead of sitting in my living room, surrounded by my family as well as tighten friends, we was sitting in a hammock during a beach-side hotel in Nicaragua, surrounded by a 29-year-old American acupuncturist as well as a former UN worker
from Sweden.

And instead of a interventions concentration being upon an ethanol or drug addiction, my associate hotel guest had come to speak to me about an mania a small reduction well-known; a single which concerned late-nights spent perusing Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Travel forums as well as an mania with visit navigator miles.

I can see it upon your face, a Scandinavian continued, seeking during me intently. Youre unfortunate here. You outlay all your time walking upon a beach by yourself as well as we dont speak to anyone.

My brain twitched. How could she be so presumptuous? She hardly knew me. Sure, Id spent a final several days folded in to my hammock, nose buried in my stack of transport beam books, though itd been by choice. It was my vacation. we could outlay it in still thoughtfulness if we wanted.

Its usually which Im sleepy of getting to know people as well as afterwards never saying them again, we said, fighting to keep my voice neutral.

Exactly, she said, glancing during a acupuncturist for support. we consider youve trafficked too much, she pronounced carefully, hesitating as well as afterwards not seeking during me. Its spin an diseased escape.

Running to Where?

P hoto: Zeigen_was

That sentiment was something Id heard before. Dont we consider youre using divided from your problems? was a regard which everyone from my mom to my therapist to a pointless blind date had voiced over a years.

And nonetheless Id often shrugged off their concerns with a simple we usually similar to to travel, we could understand how my enterprise to stay upon a highway must have looked.

In a final 7 years Id changed 20 times as well as lived in 5 countries, in Disney World, as well as upon various journey ships which sailed by a Caribbean, Canada, as well as Mexico.

I had more visit navigator miles than we did income in my bank account. Friends, what couple of we still had, were scattered around a globe similar to a postcards we wrote though never sent.

This was a initial time, though, which someone had labeled what we deliberate usually a adore affair with transport a bona fide addiction. Part of me longed for to snap, we am not addicted.

But an additional partial a a single which stopped me wondered if she was right. The ongoing restlessness, a pour out of stress we felt during a small mention of a difference car insurance or year-long lease, a actuality which we hadnt had a genuine attribute regretful or otherwise in half a decade, all forked to a probability which we competence have a problem.

The First Step

Okay, so may be Im dependant to travel, we said, sitting up in a hammock. Whats so bad about that? To me, transport broadens a mind it provides valuable perspective, as well as makes people more creative, eccentric as well as empathetic.

Sure, it was a sacrifice to traffic face-time with a family for Facebook chats as well as rushed Skype calls from internet cafes, though it wasnt similar to we were articulate about me laying cracked-out upon a floor.

If all we do is travel, a Swedish woman countered, afterwards it stops being a healthy shun from being as well as starts being all we have. How ca! n we con clude transport or suffer it if we dont take a break any once as well as a while?

How can we conclude transport or suffer it if we dont take a break any once as well as a while?

What she didnt know was which we had taken a break from it. Or Id tried to anyway. Im done, Id sworn to my family any time we returned from an additional long, transport binge abroad. Im ready to stay in a single spot for a while.

And for a whilst we would, throwing myself in to my brand brand brand new pursuit as well as buying potted plants as well as goldfish in an try to embrace a stability. But during a little point, usually around a three month mark, a cravings would proceed again.

Just One More Time

Id try to squelch them with weekend highway trips or prolonged walks, though these were usually temporary fixes. The trapped feeling would proceed with a slight tap in a recesses of my brain, a single which would in a future yield a approach around to a front of my consciousness, creeping downward by my veins as well as in a future filling my complete system. we felt powerless.

Just this a single final time, Id guarantee myself as a craft overwhelmed down in Tokyo or New Delhi. But as shortly as Id step out of a airport, Id always know this wasnt it. The smells as well as sounds would decorate me, similar to a cuddle from an old friend, all a whilst still feeling a pour out of fad from creation an insinuate brand brand brand new connection.

Not distinct a initial cigarette of a day after a prolonged sleep, my brain would fire up during a initial breathe of my brand brand brand new environment as well as all my tragedy as well as stress would be transposed with exhilaration as well as a optimistic, giddy feeling which anything was possible.

Until my brand brand brand new environment inevitably grew too comfortable, familiar as well as routine. Then a whole routine would begin all over again.

Releasing a Hook

Photo:craigCloutier

Later which evening, we sat upon a beach, alone except for a hundreds of cenobite crabs which patrolled a shoreline.

I watched them ramble in seemingly drifting zigzags, lugging all of their worldly security upon their backs as well as we suspicion about all a addictions Id overcome in a past.

Smoking, drinking, internet, television. Id clearly proven which we had a bad habit of turning what can usually be pleasurable activities in to diseased obsessions. Was it which most of a stretch to hold which Id turned transport in to a single too? And what, if anything, could we do about it?

It wasnt similar to we could spin to Travelholics Anonymous or check myself in to a Travel Addict reconstruction center. we illusory which if such a rehab existed, itd substantially be filled with former moody attendants as well as ex-tour guides.

I illusory which if such a transport rehab existed, itd substantially be filled with former moody attendants as well as ex-tour guides.

Patients would attend seminars instructing them upon a ins as well as outs of stable, sedentary lives; a topics ranging from Tips for Purchasing Your First Pieces of Furniture as well as Dating a Non-Traveler. But even if such a place existed, was a resolution to my ongoing wanderlust unequivocally abstinence? No a single could expect me to cut transport from hold up entirely.

Id been hopelessly bending upon it given Elementary school. There had to be a little arrange of happy middle between my winding existence as well as a boring hold up of mortgages as well as gym memberships. But what which is, we have no idea.

Where to Next?

As we write this, Im sitting in a hostel in Leon, Nicaragua, where usually a couple of moments ago, my pointer finger was staid over a purchase craft ticket button upon a computer screen. A partial of me knows which we need to go home. we need to traffic in a t! rek for a mailbox as well as crony people somewhere alternative than Facebook.

If for no alternative reason than a actuality which Im sleepy of being alone. But an additional partial of me wants nothing more than hop upon a subsequent bus to Panama.

Have we ever felt uncontrollably dependant to travel, as well as how did we hoop it? Share your thoughts below.