Losing It As A Backpacker

One of the best things about being a backpacker is living outside the boundaries of ‘normal’ society. You can also push new boundaries and explore your understanding of Self.

Sometimes when you’ve been on the road for too long, or the experiences have become too intense, you start to lose it.

Solitude

You can start disconnecting from your essential Self and become a travel-version of yourself. It may be the case your outgoing/introverted personality traits are exaccerbated; your self-reliance skills are heightened; you go to places you can’t describe but only wish to experience again.

While this might be ok for a short amount of time, it’s worth being aware of some obvious signs that you’re not thinking as you once did. Understand and embrace the changes, but recognise the dangers. Better to self-arrest before turning into a travel wanker, bore or worse.

Here are some potential indicators:

• Posting a video of yourself in a wet t-shirt competition to Facebook. You wouldn’t go down to your local pub and do this. So why do it overseas?
• Getting so caught up in the idea of the freedom of travel, you cut yourself off from what’s really important. Witness: The true story of Chris McCandless as told in ‘Into The Wild’.
• You take your risk taking too far. You’ve been everywhere else, so now why not try war-zones.

Freedom

• You spend more than 2 hours per day in internet cafes. Maybe that already includes a good majority of travellers. By any objective analysis, that’s not travelling.
• You’d rather read a book on your one day in Rome [insert any other amazing place] you visit for the first time.
• You only talk about yourself and what you’ve done rather than asking anyone about themselves and their travels. Everyone has met one of these bores.
• You travel to a country with cheap [hash, coca, qat, opium]. You stay there for months and think you’ve found nirvana but really you’ve only managed to travel up your own arse and no further.
• Loneliness of the road can exacerbate pre-existing mental health issues. When you are not around people who know you the onset of depression is even more likely to go undiagnosed.
• You keep travelling, you don’t stop, except to work to get money to travel again. Technically, you’ve become institutionalized and detached from realities and responsibilities.
• Returning home and not having a feeling of belonging. Post-trip depression is more than bad jet-lag. It’s a case of not feeling the rush of the new anymore  to which you’ve become accustomed.

Road to Nowhere

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