“What’s next? Isn’t it time for real life?”
“You’re off to the tropics again? Are you having a quarter life crisis?”
“You’re so smart and talented. I don’t want you to waste your potential.”
There were times when the voiced concerns of friends and family left me questioning the responsibility of my lifestyle.
Others when the voices in my own head stirred fears of what my future might hold.
Giving myself the permission to pursue lifelong travel has been an ongoing process of deprogramming the paradigms instilled in me by my culture.
It has required identifying which lifestyle choices are in my pursuit of happiness and which, deep down, are ego driven.
In fact less than one year ago, after traveling to more than ten different countries, I had plans to return to the states and attend graduate school.
I wondered if I was wandering aimlessly. I felt that it was my turn to offer my skills to the beautiful world that had gifted me so much. I deduced that taking my talents and commercializing them into a revenue-generating package was the only means to that end. I believed that a traditional path in education was the way.
Then I began blogging. I began meditating.
It did not take long for me to discover that I was already utilizing my unique offerings.
That the questions and confusion within me were the result of deep probing and introspection that leads to tremendous growth.
I realized that I had learned more in the last year of travel than in sixteen years of traditional education.
I opened myself to the possibility that there were other ways to feel challenged, inspired, and alive than those accepted by society.
I recognized that the more I followed the path towards my own personal bliss the more energy, ideas, and love I had to share with my family, my friends, and with the world.
The more I let my light shine without judgment the more I felt in tune with my life’s calling.
While travel may not be the ultimate path for everyone, I feel it is an experience so transformative that it needs to be experienced at least once. Even if you hate every moment of it. For this, long term travel is certainly not a waste of potential, and is in fact the best possible use of potential.
Here is why:
Travel Teaches Problem Solving
Where will I sleep? What do I eat? How do I navigate this unfamiliar territory? Can I trust this person? What is the worst that could happen if I…?
These are only a few of the questions you will ask yourself daily. Many times the outcome will not be what you anticipated. It’s not uncommon for train strikes to limit you, food poisoning to debilitate you, strangers to manipulate you, and fences to prohibit you. You will learn to solve problems because you have to.
Many of us live in a society where solutions are provided readily. Marketers create products to satisfy consumer needs. They communicate that by purchasing a good or service the consumer eliminates the problem with little to no effort at all.
What will you do when you can no longer pay to make your problems disappear?
When the storm steals your internet, running water, and electricity? When you’re lost in a jungle inhabiting jaguars, pumas, and peccari? When you’re swindled in a language that you don’t speak? When you’re stuck in a foreign city with a frozen bank account?
What will you do?
Like animals we are programmed to survive. We are natural problem solvers. Traveling connects us with our instincts and abilities to respond in difficult situations. This empowers us to make confident decisions long after the trip is over.
Travel Cultivates Independence
How often do you engage in activities to please others? When are you simply fulfilling obligations? What if every single day you were able to decide exactly how to spend your time? Would you feel empowered? Would you be terrified?
Before I began traveling my life was centered on others. With several jobs, a generally unavailable boyfriend, and a wide social circuit, I rarely checked in to ask “Hey, Camille, what do you want?”
But traveling shows us that we are responsible for our own experience. We have the ability to decide how to spend every moment of our day. If we don’t enjoy that day we have no one to hold accountable but ourselves.
Recognizing this inspired me to learn to live for myself, at times independently of others. If I want to take a tour I’ll take it. If a run is calling my name, catch ya later!
I’ve learned that I actually love spending time alone. I incorporate self-care into my daily routine. I ask myself what I want before agreeing to anything. I enjoy my time with others because I don’t need them to satisfy my needs.
The more in tune you are with your own wants and needs the easier it becomes to lead an authentic life.
Travel Hones Social Skills
Life on the road can be lonely and isolating. Even when you’re traveling with companions the world around you may be so unfamiliar it’s easy to feel disconnected from humanity.
While I believe that we have everything that we need already, within ourselves, completely alone, experiences are often best when shared.
Haggling with merchants, washing at local bathhouses, and sleeping in bunk beds in a room filled with strangers are opportunities to learn from people you would never encounter otherwise. Most of them are open and interested in learning about you.
Take advantage of that.
I know it can be scary.
I’m an extrovert and there are plenty of times when I have experienced social anxiety. The moment I enter the dorm room assessing my bunkmates. My first day navigating a city. Ponying up to a bar to order a drink completely on my own.
Meeting new people, interacting in a foreign language, and responding to cultural cues is a practice that isn’t always easy. But the more you maneuver uncomfortable situations the more intuitive it becomes.
Travel Forces You to Let Go
Many of us live in a culture where surrender means failure. It implies weakness.
Quite oppositely I believe that surrender requires great strength. Knowing when to let go is a necessary skill that enables us to move forward in life rather than being stuck in the past.
Travel is the ultimate practice in surrender.
You learn quickly how infrequently you actually have control of outside factors.
However, you have the ability to control the way that you respond. You can dwell on these inevitable occurrences or you can accept their reality and decide what happens next.
Stunning scenery whizzes by you on buses. Epic views drift below the airplane wing. People you meet, connect with, perhaps even fall in love leave in an hour, a day, a month, a year.
You learn to appreciate the moment that exists. You learn to say goodbye. You learn to release what you loved instead of entrap it. You learn to be open to whatever it is that may come next.
Travel Opens You to Possibility
When you step out of the familiarity of your own world and into another you begin to see just how diverse life truly is.
Perhaps what you once thought impossible is actually entirely within reach?
If you feel hesitant about traveling alone, particularly as a woman, check a few of my past posts:
Traveling the World as a Woman
Why I Feel Safe Traveling Alone
I am so incredibly inspired by you — by your words, your photos, your independence, and adventures. Keep wandering and keep writing!
Thank you Jillian! I am working on allowing myself the freedom and confidence to continue living this way.
Just so you know you are traveling and sharing your adventures for me and for everyone that wants to know there are many rewarding and important ways to live your life. Your posts and images provide a window for us to get a glimpse at life and experiences in their true form. That being said I hope your travel never becomes a “job” and is always led by your passion. I agree with Jillian above, keep doing what you are doing, we out here watching from the net appreciate it.
Thank you as always for your kind words. By being true to myself I hope to express something that speaks to all of you. For now it’s the best way I know how.
This is an awesome post. You are definitely not wasting your potential. You are self-actualizing and living the reality you have created. Good for you!
Thank you Rita 🙂 What nice compliments!
Love this post! Very inspiring!
Thanks Katie 🙂 My sister and I love your blog!
Hello,
Nice post. Your blog does not even look like the Reddle theme to me. How do you do that? I use the Reddle theme too, but it is in fact what I think is really simple.
I upgraded my WordPress to enable design customization and edited the CSS code to my own specifications. Good luck with your blog 🙂
What a lovely post. I often get the fear about whether I am doing the ‘right thing’ with my life but whenever I stop and think about all of the amazing experiences I have had I know that I have made the right choices.
Thank you Emily. Absolutely. The adventures you are having, the relationships you are building, and the lessons you are learning are invaluable and not even remotely a waste of time. I remind myself of this often.
Just love this and everything you said is so true. Life is but a series of moments and they will all end eventually. Take advantage of that moment, stop worrying about future, stop regretting the past. Fall in love with someone for just a day and look back on that day as beautiful. Fall in love with a place for a week and look back on that week as time well spent.
Thank you Bekka. Beautiful words that I could not agree with more. Love and miss you and hope you are enjoying every moment.
Hi! I like your post. However I don’t completely agree with your list of benefits.
I love to travel. I’ve done it quite a lot. Alone, with a friend and in groups. From trekkings in Costa Rica and Vietnam to cycling in France and teaching in Indonesia. I hope I can continue to do so in the future. But the rewards as you state them are not that clear to me. The only real thing that lingers for me is a sense of love for people and of the beauty of this world. And even that not always. Regrettably.
I can honestly say that compared to my friends or colleagues that might not have travelled a lot, I am neither more resourceful nor more independent. At the age of say 20, I can imagine it makes a lot of difference, but at the age of 35 most people (or at least the ones I know) have walked the walk.
What’s more, for me, doing a so called hard days job makes it easier for me to connect to the large group of non cosmopolitan people in the world. People that have to cope with their everyday lives. For whom it’s difficult to get around or for whom it’s difficult to leave their village, city, country or continent. Dramatically put, my job is, just as my journeys sometimes are, a rite of passage. And of the two, the job is the more harsher, difficult to master.
Having said that, I honestly and completely admire your courage to follow your passion. To know what it is to travel is, I believe, the real benefit of of your travelling experiences. 😉
Thank you for your thoughts Andre. Such interesting and such true insights about the value of “a hard days” work. Simply staying in your hometown and working a humble job can teach you incredible things about yourself and about the world. That said I think all kinds of experiences are important in self growth. Most of us have only experienced one side of that coin, which is one of the many reasons why I feel travel is so important. For me personally travel has contributed to incredibly accelerated growth, growth at a level I never experienced living at home. That said I am in my twenties and made plenty of other lifestyle changes in the process. Thank you again for taking the time to really delve into this one, I so appreciate the dialogue. <3
Very good and insightful article. I totally agree.
However, that being said… a girl who looks like that never truly has to worry about being homeless or penniless, no matter where she goes. Not saying it’s right, but that’s reality. Now a big fat guy, on the other hand, runs far more of a risk living like this.
Haha, thank you. You’re right, in some ways it is certainly easier to be a woman… but on the other side of the coin it’s easier being a man! 😉
This makes me want to get up and leave. The thought of needing to fulfil my potential is literally the only thing that keeps me here. You make it seem so obvious.
I just stumbled upon this. You write so simply and beautifully here, everything you say seems obvious while I know it took you a great deal of time and thought to articulate it so well. I’m so glad for you and your adventures; getting to travel long term like that is an incredible gift, I’m sure. And basically, you’re tickling my travelling fancy… I might just want to go now. Thank you so much for sharing x
Thank you Sarah so kind of you! It really is an incredible gift, I feel lucky every single day. 🙂
Spot on. If only more people would take those words to heart and pack up & go.
Thank you Tiffani 🙂
You make such a great case for long-term travel. We’re often made to feel irresponsible for choosing travel over a stable career, but our society’s definition of success is too narrow. I’m very glad to have discovered your blog. I’ll be checking back regularly. 🙂
Thank you so much glad you like it! 🙂 And yes I absolutely agree with you!
Wow, thank you! Your blog is so down to earth and inspiring. Two months ago I sold all of my belongings, left a great job in Los Angeles and started traveling. I have had more than several days where I have doubted my decision. After stumbling upon your blog I feel a renewed sense of purpose. I love your beautiful photos, but most of all I love your sensibility and openness. You seem so at peace. Thanks again!
Abby thank you so much your comment is so kind 🙂 I completely understand, I’ve had many many of those days, especially over the last 7 months backpacking and working in Southeast Asia. But as soon as I ground myself, reconnect, take a deep breath, and look at my surroundings I remember that even on a bad day my life is spectacular. Good luck on your travels!! 🙂
My mom has wondered if I wasted some of my potential by choosing to spend a lot of time teaching English abroad in France and Japan instead of entering the job hunt in the U.S. immediately after graduating from college. Unfortunately, for quite awhile, I was underemployed but I’m studying for my master’s in England.
Anyway, I don’t think traveling/teaching abroad was a waste of my potential because I accumulated a lot of memorable experiences in Japan and France. In addition, I bonded with a lot of people with some people I may not have bonded with in the U.S. even if I had met them because I’m an introvert (I’m still working on that). I also got exposed to cultural activities I may not have known about if I had stayed in the United States.
I figured, Grad School will always be there. Chase after what you want when you want it instead of a dream that isn’t yours. Glad you had this amazing experience teaching abroad 🙂
I absolutely love this post Camille! I relate so much to it, it is too crazy!
I always tell people I feel I have learned more traveling the world on my own than I have throughout my entire university education.
This puts into words so much of how I feel.
Thank you 😀
Awesome thank you Devon so nice to hear that it resonates with you! 🙂
Excellent post! It does always seem to be the assumption that as travelers, we are “running away from something” or “wasting our potential” when in fact, as you’ve so eloquently outlined here, we are developing ourselves AND our potential in so many ways. Maybe the problem is that because it’s an unconventional route to take, it’s unrecognizable to those who choose to conform to societal expectations. Can’t wait to read more of your posts!
Thank you so much Leah 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoyed the post!
Hello! I have just spent the last 3 hours reading your blogs, and they have given me the last big push I think I needed to have a personal epiphany about my life. I am planning to go to Africa this summer to volunteer and hope to travel much much more. Thank you for showing me it is possible, and it’s not crazy. Best of luck to you on all your future endeavors and thank you! Sincerely, thank you.
Wow, thank you so much Jenny! That feels so good to hear. Best of luck to you and please let me know how it all goes 🙂
I saw Camille today in twitter … amazing i start reading some of her journeys around about the globe 🙂 i used to do that for some years … its great following our hearts.
colloidal silver also helps drinked or for skin in all kinds of ailment or few drops of iodine in water…coconut water,raw garlic but all of that you most of know it by now … good luck and keep on going American Girl 🙂
Thank you Carlos so much! Yes I’ve heard great things about colloidal silver but I’ve always been scared of turning blue haha!
Stumbled upon this site. Permanent long term travel(i.e. over 3 years) during one’s 20s is a waste of potential in my view. It’s perfectly reasonable to take a year or two to figure things out if traditional corporate life won’t provide that drive to succeed and travel can provide an environment to find that clarity. Most of the things people in the first world take for granted(airplanes, computers, internet, cameras, etc) came about as a result of people’s hard work and doing the daily grind and not from people wandering from place to place every few months and immersing themselves in a local culture. Good luck.
if potential was money, would you say money spent or wasted? it would depend on what is meaningful to you, not on what the banker thinks you should spend on.
Absolutely.
In response to the “waste of potential” comment. I’ll disagree. I spent my early 20s working my tail off, and then my late 20s living abroad – still working but also wallowing in the Swedish 6-8 weeks of vacation time, and traveling a lot. Between living abroad and travel then and since, I feel like “life” outside of work is what has helped me be a more balanced human. All my university friends settled down to the long “career”, plus kids & dogs & spouses and divorces and *SO MANY* of them are unhappy and tell me they wish they’d been more adventurous in their 20s. You have all your life to settle down and be boring – in your 20s you’re filled with energy, you’ve got a young healthy body and the world hasn’t worn you down and made you cynical yet. Embrace those years to travel & search for your (possibly unidentified) goal.
Life is way too short to settle down to live the life that other people think you should live.
Great response, I agree whole heartedly!
The different flipside of the waste of time comment; I have been with my current employer for the past 15 yrs. I have a 20 yr old daughter. I found and forever fell in love with Costa Rica when I turned 40. It taught me I was actually able to take care of myself and to trust my instincts. I have tried to impress upon my child that being 20 and single is an awesome time to do things like Peace Corps or something. She will never have the youth and freedom that 20 provides again. I can’t say that I would change anything in my life but would love to see her use a different potential the world has to offer. Pura Vida!
Pura vida Anne <3 Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I left home at 21 and told my parents I would be back in 3months. I came back 3 years later having travelled on every continent. Learning about other cultures created a huge amount of respect within me and a deeper understanding of who we are as humans. Discovering that as middle class westerners we do not always get it right gave me the huge privilege of opening my eyes to new ways of living our lives. I fully support travel of any kind.
Gah, amazing, what an inspirational comment. Thank you for sharing!! <3
I’m in my late 30s and the reason for my earlier comment regarding waste of potential was because, I know few people from my college years who initially intended to take a year or two off which became sort of a permanent vagabond lifestyle for them. When they decided in their late 20s and early 30s to try to integrate back into a normal life of having a career and some sort of routine, it became pretty much impossible for them. Most didn’t pick up any employable skills during their years of travel and the entry level professional jobs went to those out of college. Society view their qualifications as high school graduates. They were all men, so maybe things are less harsh for a woman. However, as I said, if your intention if to continue permanent years of vagabonding, I hope you gain some employable skills along the way and have some goals in mind to achieve if you want to live in U.S again some day.
I hear you Josh and understand where you’re coming from, but I want to challenge you to to think beyond that narrow perspective. Personally I’ve developed many skills over the last 3 years traveling. I’m now a certified yoga teacher, which means I can work anywhere in the world that has yoga studios, and I’ve built my own online business, which means I can work anywhere in the world that has wifi. I’m also releasing my first ebook Jan 5th and have been published in Marie Claire magazine, one of the top magazines for women in the entire world. The point of all of this is to say that traveling has shown me not to conform to what businesses in the USA want from me, but rather to CREATE something that helps me sustain myself. I could work my way up the ladder for a career that I think I want, or I could create the job of my dreams for myself. I’ve chosen the latter. If I wanted to come and live in the US I could, because I have a mobile business I can take anywhere. Through my blog I’m not suggesting people do nothing and live like a homeless person the rest of their lives. I’m suggesting they explore themselves and explore the world enough to discover what they truly want and then create something out of that. It’s totally possible to have a job that supports a nomadic lifestyle and inspires other people along the way. I’m already living it and I know many other people who are too.
It’s great you picked up tangible skills and built a sustainable business. It sounds like you’ll be just fine upon returning. My friends lived in a different time without the benefits of ubiquitous internet access, so unfortunately it was harder for them to earn a wage to live the kind of lifestyle they wanted to live upon returning. Also, health care law was very different back than now, so that was another big financial burden without an employer sponsored insurance. Unlike now, insurance companies didn’t have to accept every applicant, and some made the mistake of forgoing insurance only to end up with huge medical bills. Good luck to you and enjoy your travels.
I loved what you writed and I completely agree. Ive been trying to do the same the past few years and for me the complicated part is pass across the invisible line that my family and friends put around me. Like the expectations that they created. I graduated in law very young (with 22 years) and they had so many plans for me. But all I want now is to find myself doing what I love and learning by the best way – living. I dont have many time to follow blogs but I hope you keep walking on the way you decided to. Best regards from Brasil to you!
Manu Maciel
Thank you so much dear! <3 xo
I love this 🙂 It can be very frustrating when family and friends think you’re wasting time through travel, but in fact as you’ve mapped out in this post, there’s so much to be gained by it.
Indeed there is <3 xo
Here a Brazilian traveller who identifies a lot with your words. I totally agree but I´m not able to write it. I´m glad every time that I read one of your texts.
Thanks for sharing and for helping me to explain to my family and friends what travelling mean for us.
XX Amanda
You’re so welcome beautiful Amanda. Thank you for being you xx
So mannnny feeelings!!! I had so many feelings when I read your email and blog!! Nodding my head vigorously, saying YAAASSS YASSSS. Or feeling pangs of frustration by the comments (from others in your blog, that echo ones I have heard) like “moving back to NY would be the challenge”. While carrying that happiness in a place like NY would absolutely be a challenge, it is JUST THAT challenge that leads so many of us longingly read your blogs for an escape, flock to your retreats for inspiration and have long term plans of leaving the concrete jungle.
Your blog confirmed once again that I know I am on the right path in my journey. Some people who disagree with travel truly being a challenge and or powerful learning experience (I feel) just don’t get the “it” of what “it” is we seek.
The reasons we are willing to leave comfort, family and “home” for unknown, uncertain and unfamiliar. To challenge ourselves without a guaranteed outcome just hoping to find something meaningful on our journeys.
I certainly don’t feel that what you have done or what I plan to do it is running away from responsibility/not utilizing our potential or that we must commercialize and package the golden nuggets of greatness that have been discovered in order to share. I feel like it is the absolute BIGGEST challenge to defy and say NO to the social constructs and pressure of what we are “supposed” to do. To me, I feel like we are different but good different. The ones who can see extra colors in the color spectrum. Special. Enlightened. What have you. We are lucky to have reached (not a higher or superior by ANY means) a level of consciousness that so many aren’t able to. Whether its culture, belief systems, socioeconomic, location and access to knowledge or for any other reason. We, my friend, I consider us are the lucky ones.
Cant wait to dive into this more in 8 (or so) weeks!
XOXO
Baroness
Hey beautiful I’m soooo happy to read your words. What a treat it will be to connect in the flesh and have a truly awakening experience together in Costa Rica. Loving you already!
I don’t understand why or how people say traveling is a waste of your potential or that’s it’s selfish.
Traveling provides so much education, compassion for other cultures and most of all appreciation for our beautiful earth.
Dare I say, i think going back to college or working for a full time corporation would be the true waste of your potential. The gifts you’ve given us women on retreat, the love you share and spread through your blog, the inspiration you give to thousands… you are changing lives! That’s living up to your incredible potential !!!
And I can’t thank you enough for it
Love you!
Elicia
Awwww sister I love you SOOOOO much. Thank you for being you <3
Dear dear Camille!
What a post! You nailed it for me! I have climbed the career steps. I am using my talents as society requires. But even then people feel like they could tell you to do more. Work more. Become a professor. Have children… Blablabla. Last year I felt so trapped I took six months off.
Left my husband and cat at home. Followed the wind kitesurfing. It was a huge challenge and made me grow in a very special way that
university will never do. It was an unforgettable experience that is so precious that no money in the world could compensate for!
Do not ever again worry about your talents! You are such a good writer and photographer- you inspire me every time you post. Imagine! I am just some 39 yr old lady from Germany! And you have the power to inspire me and so many others around the world! What an impact! How many lives you save! And by the way: it is so much easier to live the “normal” western life than creating your own! Than truly listen to your wildest dreams and live them! You can be very proud of you! Please keep doing what you are doing and being what you are. And changing. See u in Costa Rica one day! A big hug from lake zuerich!
Sabine thank you so much for your sweet and encouraging comment. I’m so glad to hear that you are asking yourself these questions and expanding yourself and your life. What a courageous journey you are on. Sending you so much love xx
Hey American Girl! Great article! I can totally relate. I lived in Bocas on and off for 5 years and live a life of travel. All the while my friends are doing their thing and giving me grief about when I am ever goona get a real job and settle down. My response to them is settle down is not in my vocabulary!
One thing I think is completely relevant to add, especially today, is travel is a way for us to experience other cultures, understand them and our global struggles, work together towards our global goals, and spread love and happiness!
The problems we are facing in America today is actually a lack of international experience and a lack of global understanding. So all in all I’d say what you are doing is actually contributing to the greater good! Inspiring others to travel, always sharing positive vibes and tips on healthy living, etc. You go girl! And besides, NYC will always be there if you decide to take on the challenge one day!
Hey love thank you so much! You are the change <3