How do you pick up and travel the world?

I recommend the book “Into the Wild.” It speaks about multiple people who abandoned their roles in society.

“The Last American Man” is another good read for the subject.

Well, if you’re a play it safe and plan everything type you aren’t a candidate for spontaneous travel adventure anyway.
I don’t think many people just pick and and travel with the knowledge they are going to run out of money in a foreign country and be stuck there. Where did you get that idea from anyway?
Of course there are ways of finding work and making money as you go, people have and do take that path but usually have a working knowledge of the country and language and ideas of work available to them and their skill set in the countries they are going to be traveling in.

Bottom line, some people are just more spontaneous and less concerned about covering every detail and having their futures planned out to a “T” and you don’t have to quit your job, you can easily travel for several weeks and come back to your work. My daughter is 29 and just got back from 2 weeks in Amsterdam, Poland and Rome. Her good job was waiting and next year she is going to Japan and Costa Rica.

I met someone who had done this for years. He was able to find odd jobs to support himself in the countries he was in. One thing that really stuck with me that he said, was that the experience removed his fear of life’s twists and turns. Because he had learned that, in a worst-case scenario, he could survive with pretty much nothing to his name but a backpack and a blanket for as long as he needed.

I’m like you, I wouldn’t be able to relax not knowing that my security was ensured.

A lot of young people champion the “drop everything and move to another country / go backpacking for months” idea as some kind of fix-all for whatever problems they perceive with their lives. It rubs me the wrong way, because it’s an inherently privileged act. Not everybody can just do that. Reliance on health insurance or prescriptions is one surefire way to get yourself tied down, for example.

I’ve wanted to do it before. I wanted to walk from SC, to the west coast. Then go by ship, or kayak through the Pacific to east Asia. Then walk to the tip of Spain. Then to the upper northeast US. Then back home.

I figured it would take 3 years, if I survived… Never went through with it. I still could, but I have too much family, and friends. Maybe if my parents,and dog passed away, I would reconsider…. I would love to do the trip.

“Into the Wild.” Dude died, didn’t he?

The only people who really travel the world are those who are obscenely rich, and those with a wanderlust and no particular obligations to people or things, like jobs.

You either have to be able to and like living hand to mouth or have saved enough money to finance the trip and have faith that you will pick up your career when you get back. Not for most people.

Sometimes one can negotiate a leave of absence for a few months and give it a mini-shot.

Yeah Dutch. Christopher McCandless (I think was the character from the book) died. The movie focused on him. The book had tales of many people like him. Some of them died too.

But they went out on their own terms. There’s something about that…..

Can’t say, I’ve had thoughts about that back in the day,but not in the sense that you seem refer to. I wanted to get off the beaten path, travel down to Amazonia, the rain forests of Zaire, or maybe Borneo or New Guinea. I did get down in the interior of Mexico, but that was pre drug cartel days. Then life got in the way, marriage/ mortgage/ children/ grand children. No regrets. But I still wonder sometimes, in idle moments… what if?

^I get it….

In the 70’s my girlfriend and I took a wild ride to Oklahoma City one night, on a whim. Wound up in a gay bar by accident. It was a trip!

There are numerous places around the world where travelers can get free lodging in trade for certain volunteer work.

@Mariah Traveling is not an act of privilege for a lot of people. If someone saves their money and decides to travel, backpack across Europe or whatever they choose, good for them. Life is about having experiences and what rubs me the wrong way is the thinking that privilege is a dirty word. More power to those that have the financial freedom to follow their hearts desire.
There’s already too much shaming in this world let not add travel shaming into the mix.

I’m the free spirited traveling type and now that i have been wiped out during the recession my biggest regret is that I won’t be able to travel more. It’s a great big, beautiful, amazing world and I wish everyone could travel the world for a year in their lives.

In one breath you said that traveling isn’t a privilege and in the next you said you can’t travel because of your financial situation. I’m not saying it’s shameful to travel, you totally misunderstand what I mean by privilege. I just mean it isn’t something that everyone can do, so to tout it as a universal solution to life’s problems like so many people my age do is kind of ignorant to other people’s life circumstances.

@Mariah I don’t think it’s a universal solution to young peoples problems, more just the craving for freedom and wanderlust. Younger people have wanted to travel and see the world for centuries. My circumstance is different now as I am too old to stay in hostels and camp and backpack around , I need more comfort these days, but comfort isn’t necessarily synonymous with privilege. Just sayin’ that I don’t think people that want to travel have anything to apologize for whether they are 19 or 59.

And I am not saying they have anything to apologize for either….I still think you may be misinterpreting my remarks about privilege…traveling is in no way bad. Traveling is good and I wish everyone could travel. But the fact is that not all of us can, and it’s not always due to a flaw in personality, not being “spontaneous” enough or whatever.

My comments weren’t directed at you to start with, by the way. I’m thinking of some of my college friends who were fortunate enough to be able to go on extravagant trips after graduation. It irritated me that they would invariably come back and have something trite to say like “the only thing standing between you and a grand adventure is fear.” That’s the attitude that rubs me the wrong way. Not everybody’s life circumstances make travel possible. In that sense travel is a privilege. Privilege does not equal shame.

@Mariah Agreed.

Traveling is great if you have a life that will allow it. Leaving a wife and kids to fend for themselves so you can travel the world and be a vagabond is bad.

Agreed, I’d never have left my family. Man’s go to set his priorities. As I said, it’s just a pipe dream I have when the family isn’t around. Hell, nothing wrong with a day dream is there?

@Patty_Melt Can you link to some of those places please?