In 2014, I visited 5 foreign countries – of which 3 were first-time visits for me – and added 11 World Heritage sites to my roster (admittedly, most of those featured on a single trip in a matter of two weeks).
Certainly far above the average American intake of overseas travel.
Definitely not too shabby in the broadest measure, for a guy who is office-bound in his professional capacity and has to ration his vacation time.
And yet, puny by standards of people who somehow manage to turn international travel into a full-time occupation.
There are quite a few of these modern nomads to be found on the interwebs. Some are kids just out of school. Others are location-independent entrepreneurs who run online businesses or earn with their writing. A few are escapees from the rat race. Every single one of them at one point or another posts a treatise on the topic of “Everyone can travel”.
I envy them more frequently than I should be admitting. I’d love to exchange sitting in my office chair for walking around cobblestone streets in a faraway destination with my camera in hand. Part of my ongoing mid-life crisis, I suppose.
What separates me from all of those travelers is obligations. I have them. They don’t.
They are, as a rule, unattached. Most are proud of travelling solo and exuberant about making new friends wherever they land, but majority are not in any long-standing relationship, to say nothing of matrimonial ties. A small segment of those who travel as couples are yet to convince me that they function as families rather than primarily as travel companions.
They are, practically without exception, childless. In extremely rare cases, a family may lead a comparatively nomadic lifestyle with small children who are too young to have adverse reactions to the lack of stability in their lives, but that only reinforces the general no-children rule. (I am not considering here expatriate families who relocate to be stationed overseas; obviously, we have done it ourselves and certainly found our opportunities for travel greatly enhanced, but that was still within “travel-when-you-get-time-off” paradigm rather than “travel-all-the-time”.)
In other words, if these people ever had to sacrifice something in order to start and lead their nomadic lifestyle, it was just themselves who had to make that sacrifice and not anyone who depended on them.
Me, family, children, level of income that is not high enough to have allowed me to retire by now and yet is too high to be easily replicated in any other accessible alternative career path – if I ever seriously considered a lifestyle change it would be hard to reconcile with my obligations to support our collective needs.
So, when a breezy 23-year-old, who admirably has been able to build a notable online presence translatable into a career as a travel blogger in just over a year, expounds the idea of choosing nomadic lifestyle, I recognize that I am not her target audience.
Instead, I’ll plan for as much travel as my office-bound existence allows.
Tentatively, in 2015, I will visit 7 countries – of which 3 will be for the first time ever – and add another dozen or so World Heritage sites to my list.
I still think it not too shabby, given the obligations.