WhyNotFoto Around the World: Drunk Traveling

Back in 2012 I wrote a post about travel hangovers. Similar to an an alcohol induced hangover, it described that 'blah' feeling you get after an amazing travel experience where you don't really want to get out of bed and see something new because you need to recover from the time that just was. I now present to you another drinking related travel comparison: Drunk Traveling. While my sleeping in the lobby of a 24 hour bank ATM way back in 2007 was the culmination of a day spent at Oktoberfest followed by a train ride to Fussen, the drunk traveling which occurred back then is not what I will be discussing here, though this post is inspired by the sequence of events following another long day of drinking at this year's Oktoberfest. Funny how that works.
You know the feeling you get when you wake up in the morning after a night of drinking and your recollection of all the events of the night before are a bit hazy (Oktoberfest 2014 and the night I slept with a princess comes to mind)? Well, it's a feeling you get, to state the obvious, because you had too much alcohol the night before. Which then got me thinking, "Could the same be true of travel? Could a person accumulate so many travel experiences in too small a window of time which, upon future reflection, simply become one, big, hazy, incomplete travel memory? Could this type of 'drunk traveling' do more harm than good? I've often wondered this of my typical style of travel and of my travels over the past few years.

I grew up in a household where, like many Americans, my dad never had much vacation time. With that, and with the mindset that we might never return to those places, we packed each vacation with enough activities to fill 2 or 3 more relaxed itineraries to those same destinations. Ingrained with that philosophy in my DNA, I visited 13 countries in 2 months back in 2007, 37 countries on all 7 continents in 11 months in 2012, and am now 17 countries into a trip which will most likely turn into a 25+ country 9 month trip. As of this moment, in the last 34 months, I've only worked for about half of them yet still had the resources to visit 40+ countries and all 7 continents. There probably can't be more than a handful of people on the planet who will have traveled to as many countries/continents as I have in that same window of time. Too much?

I also wonder if all of this traveling is alienating me from my friends and family back at home and will alienate me from each backpacker I meet in every destination going forward. I'm grateful for all of the people who follow my travels and seem genuinely interested in my experiences, but I know when I eventually return home, once the excitement of those initial reunions fade away, I'm going to be left with a treasure trove of experiences of which the majority of family and friends won't be able to relate. Plus, it's not like everyone at home has stopped living while I've been traveling. Important things have been happening in their lives while I've been on the road, and I'm missing it. So I return home, am disoriented because I have to readjust to life at home in order to fit in once again, while no one else really has to readjust to me being around, unless I was perceived to be a burden leading up to my departure. Too much?

And to be completely honest, I've now traveled so much, that I don't even like telling other backpackers about all of the places I've been because it almost feels like bragging. Now you can never know just by looking at someone, how much a person has traveled. So, if and when I do decide to mention all I've seen and done, most backpackers will do the polite thing and tell me about their experiences, but many of them almost seem sheepish when sharing their stories because their travel body of work pales in comparison to mine. It can be an uncomfortably awkward feeling. And what's worse, is given that most backpackers follow similar paths in every part of the world, I've beaten the same paths as just about everyone I meet. So when they tell me about their stories, I don't listen with the same level of interest as I would have if I was new to the backpacking lifestyle because I've already lived those same experiences and have my own personal memories which will resonate more with me than any story someone else could tell me. So now I've traveled all over the world and have a wealth of travel experiences to which very few people can relate. I feel somewhat guilty when sharing my experiences to nearly everyone but for the extremely seasoned backpacker and I find that I have very little interest in the experiences of most other backpackers because they haven't been anywhere I haven't. Too much?

It's as if, with each new destination I visit, I can now relate to even more people's travel experiences, but even fewer people can relate to mine. It's an interesting dichotomy, which leaves me wondering, "Too much?"

So, what's the big picture? I've traveled a ton over the past few years. I'm an unapologetic drunk traveler. I don't regret my travels, not even for a minute. Though the scope and magnitude of all these experiences, in such a small window of time, sometimes feels like one big run-on sentence which I can't fully comprehend and appreciate because my life hasn't had enough commas and periods of late, I'm not stopping my travels anytime soon. Perhaps I'll modify the manner in which I travel, but it's difficult to change one's DNA. I figure I may as well see and do as much as I can while I can, and that I've got the rest of my life to fully appreciate and make ultimate sense of everything I've seen and done to date. I wish for everyone to experience the type of meaningful travel I've been so fortunate to experience over the last couple of years, I hope they're proud of all of their experiences but are driven to see and do more after hearing my stories. I met my wife because of lessons learned while traveling and am now fortunate to be traveling with her. This blog, and the journal I keep, help organize my thoughts, clear those foggy memories, and keep me grounded in a way nothing else has during the last few years. I trust that my friends will always be my friends and that the lessons learned during my travels will actually bring me closer to them instead of being an alienating force. And for my family, well, you're stuck with me.

So, is it possible to have too much of good thing?" When it comes to alcohol, though it makes for insightful blog posts, the answer is clearly, YES. When it comes to good gelato, the answer is clearly, "NO!" But when it comes to travel, where do I stand? There are times when I travel too quickly and everything seems like a blur. There are multiple encounters with others when I censor my travel stories to appear as though I'm just another backpacker. My travels have distanced me from family and friends for huge chunks of time over the past few years and I can never get that time back as their lives go on without me. In the end though, my travels have shaped who I am today and will shape my actions for the rest of my life. For that reason, and that reason alone, there can never be such thing as too much travel. As a result, I may need to work harder to forge new travel friendships and to keep those whom I care about close to me, but after all of this time jet setting the past few years, it's only fair that I should work a little bit. Cheers.