Recently I came across a really interesting blogpost, written by a German journalist called Scholti about travelling and how it impacts your life. This article really got me thinking, so I wanted to share it with you. For that, I translated part of it into English, the complete German version can be found here.

I understand what the guy means, I somehow made similar experiences and share the same feelings. Before I went travelling Latin America for three months back in 2008, my plan was to study very close to my family. However, going on the trip completely changed my life: I am now studying in London and take every chance that I get to see the world (now I am in Guatemala, next week we are leaving for Belize and Mexico and end of September I will start my studies abroad in San Diego, California).

Have a read through the article and tell me what you think.

LONELY PLANET DESTROYED MY LIFE

written in 2007 by Scholti (by the way, this guy seems to be still travelling, his last post was in March 2010 and at that point he was in India.)

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At some point it doesn’t matter anymore which country you are in. The only important thing is that your head is free, that you are not thinking of home anymore, and if yes, then only while shaking your head. It soon becomes clear that something went wrong in our home land. From afar, Germany looks totally different. It’s a cold country with stressed-out people who make a fuzz over capitalist values. Fear reigns. Fear to lose one’s job, fear to not get a job, fear to be alone, fear not to do enough. You are travelling through countries, where people are destitute and never saw a computer in their lives. They all look happier than the business men, politicians and trainees. You know that’s naive. But suddenly you no longer understand what would be so wrong with naivete. You experience moments of absolute joy. Moments, in which only the present counts. Moments which are filled with the beauty of nature and of the people on the planet. They are the most real thing you’ve ever felt in life. They are tronger than arguments. You begin to understand esoteric people, you also want to learn Yoga and how to meditate.

If you come back after a year, you completely lost your comprehension and understanding for your home country: for the complicated, long-runining political processes, the lies of the government, the arrogance of the rich, the necessity of student fees, for HARTZ IV and the bad weather.

And then it is too late. Your level of frustration has sunk to jus barely above 0. A small personal defeat in your job or at university, the rejection by a woman you like, will bring you down and you have to start thinking of the drug again. Three month of working as a waiter/waitress is enough and you are again in Thailand, India or Guatemala and the others can give a fuck. You are not able to start a normal life again. You are always travelling. Meanwhile all your friends have jobs and relationships. You start to feel lonely. You start to hate. But this time not because you are living a better life, but because they have something that you don’t. All what you have are memories and all the stamps in your passport. You start to be upset. Lonely Planet destroyed your life. It all started really harmless. One month of Thailand and a Lonely Planet guide. No packaged holiday anymore. The first time that you discover a country on your own. Alone without booking any hotels in advance. Thailand makes it easy. It is the starter drug. It is beautiful, exotic and unbelievable cheap. The food is extraordinary, the people are super-friendly and the landscape is stunning. Thailand has the perfect backpacker-infrastructure: comfortable, safe and enough space for adventures. The next time you will go on a longer trip. You do not only want to go on vacation, but you want to travel. Two or three months in your summerbreak. Maybe in one of the neighbour countries, such as Kambodscha, Laos and Myanmar or go to Latin America. You often get diarrhea from the food and the transport becomes harder and the hostels dirtier. But you are not meeting a nurse from Hildesheim in your bus anymore, but a guy from Canada, who has been travelling for a year through South-East-Asia or an esoteric freak from Israel, who tells you all the time about India, where he learnt Yoga in two months in an Ashram. You see places, which are magic: Angor Wat, Machu Picchu, Largo Atitlán, the Maya pyramids in Tulum or the temple of Pagan.
Everything that seems to be difficult at home is easy on your trip. For example getting to know other people. You see somebody with a Lonely Planet book in his/her hands and you start talking to the person. He/she is happy about that. He/she doesn’t think you are gay or that you are a freak without friends. You start travelling together with the person for the next two weeks; you share a hotel room with the person, even though you couldn’t spent more than three hours with the same person in a room in your home country. Then you exchange email addresses. Maybe you will write the person once or twice, maybe not. You have many email addresses from people all around the world and you kind of lost the overview. Every day you meet people, whose life concepts are totally different from what you know. Guys, who earn their money by giving three hours of English classes and are smoking weed the rest of the day. Bar owners of France, who work half a year and travel the rest of the year. People, who don’t want to come back, whose life content has become an escape. They all look happy. Your view of different values starts to falter. All what you need to be happy is a Lonely Planet Guide and a credit-card. Why earn thousands of Euros when you can live like a king with 10€ a day? You are living the best times of your life. After three month you come back and realize that nothing has changed. Your friends are talking about the same things they have talked about three months ago. But it seems to be so unimportant: Someone got an internship in a company, somebody had especially good sex the last weekend or someone has problems with his girlfriend. That can’t be true. In three months you have experienced as much as others in three years. You expect more from your life. Travelling doesn’t let you go anymore. You are not attending university very regularly. Your studies are getting longer and longer, it is boring and dry. You want to live, not to function. You want to go to India, Nepal or Columbia. You want to travel for one or two years. You work again to travel even longer. You are doing it. You sell your furniture, exmatriculate, move out of your flat and leave again: A one-year-world-travel.

So- what do you think about this article? A friend of mine actually sent me this article a couple of days before I moved to London.
I think travelling is a great thing! This shows that you take interest in other cultures and traditions and you develope and change yourself. I have become way more social through my travelling. I could imagine to volunteer for many organisations and help people all over the world. But I also agree that my home country appears different to me – I see a lot of negative sides of Germany now. I met so many superficial people who prefer spending their money for lots of useless stuff instead of saving money and see the beauty of the world…