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7 Ways To Survive When You’re Not Traveling

7 Ways To Survive When You’re Not Traveling

Although I’m thoroughly enjoying the fresh challenges of working full-time and it’s great to be earning money again, the realization that we’re not going to be traveling in the next few months is really starting to set in and it sucks.

This was made even more difficult earlier in the week when we were forced to decline an invitation to visit South Africa for the INDABA Travel Show (which came through just a few days after cancelling our flights to New Zealand) because of my new work commitments.

Elephants in South Africa

We could have been seeing this in South Africa next month!

It still hurts thinking about these missed opportunities.

The two of us have concluded that the longer-term benefits of completing this three-month work contract far outweigh the short-term gains of travel. We discovered the challenge of delayed gratification in the lead-up to our RTW trip last year so have been through something similar before.

But how do we survive without travel in the meantime?

This time around we don’t have the adventure of a lifetime just a few months away. We desperately need something to help get us through the next 3+ months without travel!

So we asked our awesome Facebook Fans to share with us how they deal with their wanderlust whilst they weren’t traveling and received some fantastic answers. Here are the best of them.

1. Do Something With Your Past Travel Photos

Toni of Reclaiming My Future cover her walls at work with her past travel photos and makes photo albums and scrapbooks at home. This is one way to keep your passion for travel strong by remembering those positive memories and some of the best moments of your life.

So start looking through those past travel photos and get inspired to get on the road again! We’ve still got over 10,000 photos from our round-the-world trip to sort through so we’ll be taking care of that in our spare time in the next few months.

2. Plan Short Trips and Weekend Getaways

Whitehaven Beach - something to look forward to!

Whitehaven Beach - something for us to look forward to!

Long-term travel isn’t an option for us at the moment but we’ll still be trying to take as many short trips as we can. We’re delighted to have a three-night visit to Hamilton Island planned in early May and having that booked means that at least we have something to look forward to.

If you’re in the same boat as us, make the most of your spare time/weekends and take an extra day or two (if possible) to have an extended break. The team behind Where’s My Passport are getting through their long days at work by looking ahead to their trip to Iceland in October.

3. Read Travel Blogs

You’ve obviously here on Don’t Ever Look Back for a reason – you want to read about travel and be inspired. And think that we’re just one of thousands of travel blogs out there!

Michael from Time Travel Turtle said that he reads travel blogs to make him feel like he’s permanently on the road. So if you need a little travel inspiration, head over to our Links page and check out some of the other awesome blogs out there.

4. Explore Your Own City

Melbourne Skyline At Night

Melbourne Skyline At Night

You’ve surely noticed that since we’ve returned back to Melbourne, we’ve been exploring a lot more of it. The two of us have taken an African safari at Werribee Open Range Zoo and gone ice-skating among other things. And we’re just getting started!

As Linda of Journey Jottings describes it…

“Think of all the people saving up to visit where *you* are as ‘their’ dream destination and imagine what they’d do with their precious time in your part of the world. Then spend every other weekend as a tourist opening your eyes to the intrinsic eccentricities that make where you’re currently based as a tourist on your home turf :)”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

5. Enjoy Other Forms of Armchair Travel

Obviously it’s not always convenient to sit at your computer and read travel blogs but there are plenty of other ways you can satisfy your appetite for travel.

Grab some travel magazines or watch some travel-related shows on television. Two of our favorite shows are Departures and An Idiot Abroad and these always entertain us and make us want to visit a variety of new destinations!

6. Help Others To Enjoy Travel

Our readers are a lovely, helpful bunch like Claudia Critelli Boothe who jumps on travel forums and provides insights and advice to people visiting her hometown or other places she’s visited. Then there’s the Travel Budget Couple who spread the love through CouchSurfing by hosting travelers in their hometown and showing them around.

7. Dream Of The Next Big Adventure

Vince Hancock heads straight for the travel agent after coming back from a trip and picks up a bunch of travel books to start dreaming of the next big adventure. This is something we did on many occasions before our round-the-world trip!

Even if you don’t have any concrete plans, think about where you’d like to go on your next big adventure and begin dreaming. We’ve got a few ideas in mind of where we’d like to head later in the year that we’ll share with our readers in due time.

How do you survive when you’re not traveling? Add your suggestions below!

Flickr Photos: Kleinz1, noami

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