Pros and cons of settling down and travelling

I have been meaning to write about this for some time now but I did not really have time to think about it that much until now. In the last few days I’ve talked about this quite a lot so I’m going to burst these ideas now here verbally.

So why do people travel? Here on the trail I talk to the fellow travellers of which some of them have travelled already maybe three years or they are planning to travel for one year. I always ask them how can you manage to do that. I mean do they not have any obligations or other things that would make them stay back home (whatever that is). These people come from very different life situations: some of them might have their own company (the fact they are travelling never ceases to amaze me because they should be running their company, right?); some just quit their job to be able to travel. Some of them work along the way in different spots. Some are just on a shorter trip.

For example, yesterday I spoke with a gentleman born in 1951, was originally from Switzerland but now lives in Spain (according to him along with some Finnish people  ). He is about to retire but has been traveling a lot and has done it all the time. He will continue traveling. And the bloke had also friends, some maybe 10 years younger couple, who were as well very travelous people, and here they were sitting in the midst of mainly 18-28 year old people in a bar just chatting. And they were very nice people, mind you.

However, most of the travellers are young people. They seem to be leading their lives as they want it to be. Either they have told their employer a year in advance that “I will go on for a two months trip in a years time, don’t know yet where, but I will do it” or they decided to do it because “it’s my life” and maybe quit a job there. Yes, a job. You can’t really do the “career-thing” if you work for, say, 6 months (which many here seem to be doing) and then another half a year just travel. Or then you have veery flexible and good employer, if it allows you to do this. I just had breakfast downstairs and spoke to two Australian girls. One of them said she just quit her job and is now travelling in Asia, next Europe. The other one said she was travelling for a shorter time but would not know what to do back home even when she said she was studying and an unfinished degree waiting for her. Yesterday I spoke to a Canadian guy who said he traveled quite a lot pretty much everywhere, and next he would go to Japan to teach English or French with a one-year visa to earn some money.

We all need money - that is a (sad) fact – and at some point everyone has to make money (or get it) in order to live relatively comfortable life or just to survive. But who ever said one would have to work for the whole lifetime? Once you start working what is there stopping you to travel more? I mean, what I’ve witnessed here during the travels is that one always survives no matter what. One can always cope (and maybe find a job?) by being friendly and open to all kinds of stuff. It might be a bit rough many times but that’s a sacrifice sometimes to be made in order to lead the life you want to live.

Do you trust your self, do you feel secure from within? When people settle down they usually surround themselves with things they either need or do not need so much. For example, a house (it’s nice to have a roof over your head), a car (it’s nice to be able to transport yourself whenever you please, and with privacy) and so on. Then it’s time to get some new, nice-looking furniture, some electronics and have your own summer cottage, you gotta have that one. Some animals as well to play around with. Little by little you start owning lot of stuff. It’s well said that at some point you don’t actually own the stuff – they own you. One becomes trapped with all these things making it very hard to change the course of your life, or so it seems. I mean really it’s just a question of the way you think. Why one allows this stuff to tell how their life is to be lived?

Some people really want to do all that above and it is completely fine. As long as they do it because they want it deep inside. But who is the society to tell you that that is the only way to get around on this globe. Everyone should have the choice to do whatever it is they want, when it comes to their life.

Anyways, now some pros and cons.

In my opinion, good things about traveling are plentiful but there are some bad points as well.

+one gets to understand different ways of thinking, different viewpoints
+one gets to understand how people live around the world, how they live their daily lives
+one sees unbelievable things, so beautiful things
+one deepens her understanding what is it that unites us humans as a whole
+one gets to taste spectacularly good food, which you can then use in your own cooking
+travelling is good for your mental health as you (usually) get to relax
+generally speaking, at least when going to hostels instead of hotels, there are fantastic like-minded people with whom you spend some of the best times of your life. You talk about life, travels, girls, whatever
+because of the last, you get some very good contacts around the world, which you can utilize to the fullest extent, whenever your traveling or in need of something in that particular are where the person is from.
+the amazement that people are very friendly all over the world as opposed to what we generally think of far-away cultures. All you have to do is smile and they will smile back to you 

-definitely the worst thing is the fact that most of the friendships you establish are very short-lived due to everybody moving around to different directions. I like to think though that as we now have Internet, we can stay in touch and share some good memories through social medias and that way remember the special times we spent together. But as a realist I think most of the ppl you never see again
-sometimes it can get lonely if you are traveling alone (it depends how active one is)
-you have to stop traveling at least for some time. Though you can stop at any place, it does not have to be your familiar home country.
-you don’t actually have a life because you don’t know anybody in general. This means you have to explain the same stuff all over again many many times.

On to settling down.

+one probably will have a very close and good circle of friends and the bonds are really strong
+one does not need to think of their “daily survival” but can rely on their surroundings to give them support and the things they need. It is very secure.
+if one is at least somewhat unsure what it is they really want, it is easy to just lay down and live the life and see what happens in the future
+one can live “the American dream” of having the house, the car, kids, husband/wife, animals, summer cottage, backyard with grass and lawnmover, say hello to neighbours and secretly compete who has the biggest BBQ-grill 

-living is very fixed, one cannot flexibly alter from daily routines, which sometimes, let’s face it, might seem a bit of a chore
-some people become or are close-minded because they cannot imagine any other way of things to be. This is one of the worst things of not traveling if it occurs.
-you miss out on traveling because it’s so damn interesting (not for all though)
-in a traveling way you cannot learn that much new about stuff

In general I could say that amongst the travelling-folk a bigger portion of people are smiling and do not get offended as easily as the people do in places that I have been to in Finland. I guess the mentality towards things is different. This would mean then that a bigger portion of people that are staying put (when comparing to travelling-folk) are not so happy with their lives. I hope this would not be the case. I hope these people would start chasing their dreams or do whatever that would make them happy and open-minded.

Bear in mind, these are my opinions – not universal truths. I probably failed to justify my arguments for some parts and you might have something to add or debate about. That is what I want you to do. Comment my thoughts, how do you feel about this stuff? What are the good sides of settling down? What is bad about travelling? I know my views are biased and so are yours, but hey it’s fun to debate innit?