Lonely Planet destroyed my life
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.
I found this picture on Flickr and the producer wrote a comment underneath, which really fits to this article:
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…
Tags: lonely planet
i think i’ve read that one on neon.de a couple years ago! but in german….
Hey Marie!
Good idea to translate this article! The author’s picked up an interesting topic…
In your comment you’re saying that you “could imagine to volunteer for many organizations and help people all over the world”. I’ve had the same thoughts. Is it because by travelling we become so much more social, even altruistic that we don’t give a sh about materialistic goals anymore?
Or does the wish to do something good to people originate in the fact that travelling makes lonely?
While travelling we get to meet heaps of likeminded people on the way, some of them totally on the same wavelength as we are. But those friendships are only temporary and I reckon finding a travelbuddy who gives you the feeling he/she actually CARES about you is an exceptional case. Maybe we’re subconsciously lacking some really close bond to somebody (friend, partner, family) and travelling actually makes us sort of lonely. And not having someone who actually cares for you is bad, but not having someone to actually care about is even worse. Maybe the wish to “help people” comes from the desire to compensate this?
Just a rather provocative “answer” supporting the idea that travelling is bad for you
. Not that I am convinced of this myself, but it came to my mind and I’m curious about your answers.
Cheers, T.
Yeah travelling is really changing your life- I come from a wealthy family, we had a house, a garden and I went to a private school. I always wanted to have a house as well and live with the same standard like my parents- but now having a house doesn´t seem to be the goal of my life anymore and I wouldn´t mind living in a small flat, as long as I have some money for travelling later.
I think when you are REALLY into travelling then it might be hard to live a normal, organised life. On my travels I met a teacher and she decided that she wants to travel rather than starting a family and having children. Now she is 30 and teaches every year in another country.
My life is a whole travel: I am studying in London, we always have a 4month summerbreak, where I have to leave London to save some money, now I am in Central America and my next semester will be in San Diego. I am really happy to have the opportunity to see the world- but sometimes I really wish I could `settle down´ somewhere, where I can be sure that I can find friends for a lifetime.
And I agree with you that travelling also makes you kind of lonely. It is nice to find friends all over the world, but like the German guy wrote, you maybe write the other person a couple of times on facebook and that`s it!
It´s a weird feeling- on the one hand I wish to see so much of the world but on the other hand I wish to find a nice place, where I can start my life, without moving all the time…
Very interesting topics on this article but I do hope that all of you have asked yourselves why this neccesity to do the “lonely planet” travels….I read here about people wanting to be volunteers and so on on so they can travel..I mean most lonely planet travelers are middle class to rich white kids(or european/australian/american etc) taking a break from their “real” lives!So what do they do well go to a really cheap 3rd world country enjoy all the beauty on offer take “exotic” pictures of little street kids and think they are so cute etc etc…alot of examples of this but anyway oh and then they re so happy because they are having an authentic experience where the people are all smiling and really nice to them….Ever wonder why all this is going on,yes lonely planet is bad it helps us enjoy without blinking in the misery of others, yet we see it as alternative travelling,seeing the real thing,living their reality and blah blah blah!Social context has given us that power, the model of progress where we are the developed ones and the rest well savages i suppose..Before going on one of your one year world tours think about it and what you going to do there and dont forget all those things that you see and experience because when you get back home 6months later your life will go back to being the same, laptop on ur lap, macchiatto,intelligent conversations about some intellectual bullsh… and that third world will be a distant memory but to you it will always be paradise,misery always gets second place….We are not there to give handouts,World charity doesnt work for these countries,They are not helpless they have just be put in a situation which is favourable for richer countries!!yes charities are favourable to the rich and corrupt!Lets put equality in its place and believe me democracy wont do it!Read up on orientalism it might enlighten you a bit…sorry for the confusing info but Im sure you can all read between the lines..
Happy travelling
S
Pretty good post. I just came upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts.
Thank you so much for the translation!
I gotta link to this… it is too close to home not to!
I had to laugh, this was perfect and so happened to me also. It was the damn guidebooks fault!
Sadly but true is the perceptions when you get home an how nothing has changed, you are changed and have to leave again…
I went from Canada and have gone through 30 countries… how spot on this was I just had to drop a line!
Cheers!
Rob
When I was laid off from my structured job, I began my addition to travel. Since then I’ve traveled nearly every month for the past three years and have flown more than 100,000 miles. I love it, but it’s true, it’s hard to maintain a life back home while traveling.
I realy agree with the feelings in this article. The getting away from all the pointless shit back home and just going out there and enjoying your life. That said, I think people with boring lives who would rather spend their time working to buy the latest pointless things can be found everywhere, even in these poorer countries. I guess the point is taht you need to del with these people wherever you go. that said, I do agree taht your own home country is always for us travellers) something to get away from!
I would like to hear some input if people think this is a healthy lifestyle? I am recently back home from a year abroad and feeling exactly how this article describes. Is it normal? or are we avoiding something? or are we just doing what makes us happy?
I’m reminded of a quote from Seneca – “do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company … To be everywhere is to be nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”
Why the need to go so far? Another quote that touches on the same subject – “A man who is tired of London is tired of life.” Have you explored your own country? Your own city, your own street?
A visit to Machu Pichu is as foreign to most Peruvians as it is to anyone reading this.
If your friends lead dull and uninteresting lives, how much duller are their lives without someone such as yourself who has the spirit for adventure?
And why are the destinations for these travels consistently in the poorer countries? Why go to Laos rather than Las Vegas? Do you think Laotians live in a world without crappy leaders, humdrum jobs and predatory businessmen? I suspect it’s not because Laotians enjoy a superior society but simply because it’s dirt cheap, and yet the writer complains about “making a fuss over capitalist values”, the same values that afford him the opportunity to partake of the riches of a poor country.
I don’t want to give the impression that I think backpacking is devoid of any merit, clearly there’s much to be enjoyed, but shouldn’t there be a balance in striving to create a contented existence in a stable environment you don’t feel the pressure to ‘escape’ from?
It’s hard to come back initially because travel brings you a lot of pleasure. It’s a drug, like cocaine, once you are hooked you want to experience more and more of it. You spend a year traveling and you are so used to experiencing new things, new sights, new people, new adventures, new pleasures. Then you come back home and after the initial buzz of telling people of your travels(if you still know someone back home), starting work and settling down you realize that it gets very repetative. Wake up every morning at the same time, do repetitive tasks at work, come home to watch tv or do something meaningless and go back to bed.
It’s human nature to be constantly looking for the next high, it’s why divorce rates are so high because people are not meant to spend their whole lives doing the same things. I havn’t even traveled much in life and I think every day life is boring, what’s going to happen after my rtw trip?
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