Nine Regrets of a long-term traveler that I am now revisiting

And a struggle with perfectionism.

We all have regrets of some sort, don’t we?

I look back at what I have done, and of course, I will pick it apart to the best of my ability, as that is what we humans do. It is also something that I am consciously working on stopping.

Writing has helped; posting imperfect articles, my grammar could be better, I rely on Grammarly. I sometimes ramble on and need clarification; I am a horrible proofreader.

I post videos, and my editing could be better. I know because my videographer friend offers suggestions, and I get upset and say ¨ I am only one person¨. Yet I can do better; however, I choose done better than perfect.

Oh yea, back to travel regrets.

In Japan, I regretted not being more adventurous and trying to interact with the locals.

It is a challenging culture to break into, but I also could have tried harder. I saw it was hard and thought I was not up for the task. There were also opportunities to get jobs teaching English posted all over Japan; I wish I had taken those opportunities as a way to integrate into the culture.

I wish I started learning Spanish on my first trip to Colombia in 2018.

Instead, I thought I would never live in a country that did not speak my native language. How naive I was. I thought it was too hard; I was lazy and just wanted to travel and see the sights; oh, how times have changed.

As I write this, I must schedule lessons with my favorite teacher Carlos! He will laugh at me in Georgia, taking Spanish. If I decide to spend more time in Georgia, I also should look into lessons in Georgia so it is not a future regret.

But with my love of the Latin culture, Spanish is most likely the best option for me, as I have a grasp on the language, as well as I really want to learn the other million tenses that haunt me; yes, you past tense, maybe we are friends one day.

I regret not spending longer in places, I look back and think about how I traveled so fast in some areas, and I only remember highlights.

Yet this is why I am writing this from a guesthouse that I booked for three nights and am still here a week later.

I regret not staying consistent in my creative endeavors, which was one of my primary travel goals, create and travel.

I have started about five travel blogs and stopped, as well as with my Youtube channel. I have fixed these issues and am now consistent and slowly building my site, but it is so much easier to write on a platform such as Medium vs. my own, but it is my dream to have my site.

So I will plug away. I also am working on higher quality content, but staying consistent gets my brain going as I know only some articles will be a winner, which is my battle with perfectionism.

I want them all to be home runs, don’t we all?

They are not and will not be. That is how life works; only some things are meant to be great. If we all were great instantly, where is the fun in that? Instead, I write and keep writing, researching, and learning.

A next step might be taking a creative writing course and learning more about the craft, but that scares me as my work may be torn apart. Yet that is part of learning, and my perfectionist side will have to get over it or learn to be criticized.

I regret getting thrown off course at times to chase something that was not that important.

To see the next highlight that everyone else was doing, getting caught up in the travel hype. One of these is anytime I met a traveler in Medellin, the one thing they would want to do was go to communa 13, so I have been more times than I would like to admit.

Instead, I would have left the city and explored another little village. Which I eventually did, but I would have much sooner if I did not always do what the other person wanted to do. I can tell you I will never do another Communa 13 tour, so anyone who wants to will be on their own.

I will also never go along with someone else’s dream in travel and life. I believe in compromise, but not to where what I want is completely thrown out the window. I am sure I am not the only one who takes a back seat to someone else.

I regret spending so much time working my first two years and not seeing as much as I would have liked.

During the first two years of my travels, I had an online remote job, which took up so much of my time, and instead of working out a schedule with my boss, I worked when he wanted me to. I never asked for clear goals, and he was very flexible and understanding, but I was not confident enough to ask for an every-other-day schedule.

Right now, since I have my plan, I have noticed that if I go out exploring one day, the next day, I am more focused on work. I also feel like I still need to take advantage of it. On the days I go out exploring, I still write, but I do not sit and do a full day’s work, maybe an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

Yet when you first start traveling, it is an adjustment, and now after so many years, I have finally begun to have a more balanced schedule that comes with time. I can not stress enough that finding a healthy balance, or you will burn yourself out of travel.

I have almost burned myself out and then spent weeks recovering because I push myself too much or too fast. I do not like to sit still; I have a lot of energy, but I also have to take care of my energy. I spend a lot of time walking alone to recoup, and my daily walk, even if I am exploring, is my time.

I have always stayed places longer than most, but now I am settling and making somewhere my nest for weeks, not just another hotel, hostel, or guesthouse. I make myself comfortable, and if I can not, I will find one that I can, which is why I moved around so much in Tbilisi, and eventually, one worked.

I regret not spending more time in Bali when I went in 2014.

Before I quit my job to travel the world, I went on a solo 3-week trip to Bali; it was my first solo trip. I signed up to volunteer and teach English for three weeks, meaning I took a vacation to work.

I loved it because I still volunteer, but at that time, I had the money to take advantage of my time there. In hindsight, I should have volunteered for two weeks and explored the other parts of Indonesia instead of only seeing Ubud.

I want to go back, but in 2014 Bali was such a different place, as compared to now, as it is a Digital Nomad paradise, and it does not interest me at all, but the other islands do. So one day, I will return and do it my way. I was young and naive before; it was my first solo trip. I was scared and had no idea what to do.

I regret not seeing more of South Africa.

I was in South Africa for about a month, and it is so sad that I can tell you I saw the beach and little else. I did not go anywhere; I stayed in Capetown.

I had a very intense job at the time, and it was demanding, and honestly, I was not too fond of it. I eventually got laid off from this job and saw it as a sign from the universe.

I wanted to see the penguins, and I was too lazy on my day off; I still regret it and know I will go back. Penguins fascinate me, and I have to go back to see those little cuties.

I regret getting off track out of laziness, comfort, and sometimes even fear.

Not going to a town out of laziness, not going to places out of fear due to reading a blog post, or having others tell me not to go. Brazil is one of those places that is huge and on my list, and as much time as I have spent in South America, I have not been, mainly out of fear.

The country is enormous, and I have heard good and evil. It will be the first place I go when I return to South America.

However, even though I do have some regrets about travel, the one thing that I will never regret is deciding to quit my job and travel the world.

Putting faith that I have what it takes to make it work and to continue the adventures for as long as I want. That is one regret that I will never have.

As well as, since I am on the road, I am currently in the process of correcting these regrets and traveling much differently than I was five years ago.

August of this year will mark my 5th anniversary; it is wild for me to think that once it was a far-off dream, now I am actively participating in my dream.

Dreams do come true.

XOXO

S

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