Right after college, I went on a round the world trip for a year. No, I didn’t charge my credit cards and delay my student loans, I saved aggressively during college by working a wide variety of jobs, graduated with savings, bought a rental property and set off to see the world.
![IMG_5048[1]](https://reachfinancialindependence.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_50481.jpg)
I wanted to do it so bad, I put that goal first and did it. And I told everyone who would listen what my goal was. Never listened to the skeptics and just kept at it.
While I was saving on my last year of college, many of my classmates were saying things like “oh wow, you are so lucky, I would love to travel BUT (insert lame excuse about money, time, having to look for a job, loving your mum too much to leave her for more than a week, etc)”.
This very topic I read about regularly in travel blogs, when the writer goes some place nice and the comments are the same “we are jealous, we want to go to XYZ so bad BUT (insert more of the same excuses)”.
Remember my post about reaching your goals and not mine? If you don’t like to travel, that is perfectly fine. Some of you live 5 miles away from where they were born and are living a life filled with happiness and balance. They do not pretend like they would love to be someone they are not.
You can say “oh yes, sounds cool, not my scene though”, or “nice pics, maybe some day I’ll visit”, as a way to make general tchitchat. But if you say you are dying to go, so sad you can’t, bla bla bla… There are NO EXCUSES. You are just lying. To yourself, to me, to society, you may not even be aware of it. What defines you are your actions.
Let’s look at a few excuses
I have no money
I traveled for a year on $10 a day. I camped, hitch hiked, and also managed to do things that were important to me like visiting UNESCO Heritage sites or diving. Not an excuse.
I have no time
Time for what? For Facebook, for blogging, for friends and beers? There will always be something. First you graduate, then you get a job, then you have to pay for all the stuff you bought, then you have kids, then you are old. Not an excuse.
I have a family
Awesome! So do Greg and Rachel, and they are traveling around with their five kids on a veggie powered truck. Not an excuse.
I have a job
Me too, or I used to. I have held great jobs related to my business degree in four countries over the past 10 years. Not an excuse.
Stop making excuses. Please.
Ok, enough bashing of the would be travelers. I am a wannabe runner. I love the idea of running, because I love to go places, see the landscape as I go, and I enjoy the idea of pushing your body further. The runners have pretty good bodies too 
. So here I am, claiming I want to run. Oh, I don’t have proper shoes. Oops. That is how it starts. No shoes, it’s too hot today, the real reason is I suck at it, I don’t manage the impact well, I am uncomfortable even with a proper bra, and would easily cycle 100 miles, swim 2 miles or walk 20 miles but can’t get started with running.
And there is nothing wrong with that. I just need to accept my truth and tell it the way it is. I’ll never be a runner, for as much as I like the romantic idea. If it were a real goal of mine, I would be running marathons by now.
Motivating! Perhaps it’s not so much a lie but a delusion.
Good luck with running. I can’t run b/c my knees will hurt 🙂 But, I can play tennis for 2.5 hour non stop!
Delusion, settling down for the comfortable instead of fighting just a little for the amazing… there is a lot of pressure to keep being average too sadly.
Love the feature image btw. Amazing!
Home sweet home 🙂
Great post!
I’ve just quit my job and moved abroad, too. It’s terrifying but so far, totally worth it.
So many people, though, said the same kind of things to me, ‘I wish I could….but….’ then some bullshit excuse. And that’s fine, as long as they don’t genuinely believe that they will ever go travelling. I don’t mean to sound so obnoxious about it, but it’s true.
Then again, I’m like you with running. I used to do it, got injured, and now I just can’t find the motivation any more. Screw it, I’ll swim instead 😀
So where was your favourite place while you were travelling?
Well probably they’ll get on an over 60s cruise once the mortgage is finally paid off, the kids are gone and they run out of excuses! I see you’re in Belize, is Guatemala next? I am near Tikal so let me know 🙂
I fell in love with Guatemala, nice weather, nice people, lots of diversity in a small territory, unlike say Argentina or Mexico where you have to go 1,000 miles before it starts looking different. In a few hours you can go from the Pacific to the highlands to the Caribbean to the jungle. Definitely worth a visit if you can.
I also loved Ecuador and Bolivia for similar reasons.
Eastern Europe, Croatia, Romania, Macedonia… have a a lot of historical and natural beauty without the high price tag of Western Europe, and are still pretty traditional once you leave the cities.
And in Asia I enjoyed Myanmar and Malaysia, but it was harder to get to know people so I guess that’s why I ended up in Latin America.
The problem, as you state in your last paragraph, is that who people would “like to be” is often disconnected from who they “really are”. I’d like to get all my old musician friends together and record a new album. Man, that’d be amazing and fun! Am I willing to put in the work? Hell no–I guess not or I would have already done it.
If a person, any person, really, really “wants” something, they will do it or at least keep trying actively to achieve it. (Umm.. I guess unless they’re in jail or paralyzed or something?) Otherwise, it’s not really a want so much as a passing fancy of who you think you’d like to be in your mind’s eye.
(BTW, it drives me crazy when friends or people at work who make the same or more than me say I’m “lucky” to travel as much as I do.)
With excuses, we couldn’t go anywhere and wouldn’t achieve our goals. Stop making excuses to see what it can positive change it brings to life!
Wow, I so agree with this and it’s refreshing to see somebody bring it up! I do catch myself making excuses sometimes.. I’m not perfect but if something isn’t a priority for me, I try to just say it rather than make an excuse. Because frankly, if I’m making excuses it’s definitely not a priority!
I love this post!!! And, I have to “check myself” on a couple of things.
This is wonderful. I’m a single mom, poor by the numbers, but I choose to live without a lot of things so that I can afford to travel without going into debt for it. It shocks people sometimes, but my priorities are my priorities, and I think it’s an amazing gift to my children, the travel as well as the life lesson.
I don’t normally post things and this is actually the first time on any website at all.
After reading your article I was excited to finally discover that I was not alone in my dislike against the over use of peoples “BUTS”. In any conversation I listen for the “but” and when I hear it I then ignore everything the person just said until after the “but”. Then you hear the excuses and general cop-outs for why they cannot do this, that or the other thing.