Reasons for traveling apart from traveling

There a millions of reason for why we leave home. And of course millions of reason to stay home. Apart from the most obvious one “I want to see the world and I want to meet new people/ places/ cultures/ etc.”

This is just a little list of reasons for why I left home and why other people, that I met, left home:

1) To learn or practice a language

When I left for Spain back in 2015 my main goal was to practice and improve my Spanish also to see how good I was and how much more effort I have to put in to be fluent.

Actually I wanted to go straight to South America as you got more possibilities and people here speak less English so you’re forced to speak Spanish.

Now that I’ve been here for quite a while I have to say it has improved a lot. Sometimes I’m amazed on how much I understand and how good – more or less – I can express myself.

Pretty much everybody knows if you want to learn a language you have to spend some time in that country. You can read as many books and watch as many videos or movies you want but in the end you still miss out certain parts of the language.

I have met several people who did a Spanish course all over South and Central America.

Spanish and also English have the advantage that there are many places in the world where you can learn it. The same with French and some other languages, of course. But this is also their disadvantage as there are so many different ones, each with a different vocabulary and accent, you might face some troubles when you don’t have a consistent base to improve on. Otherwise you just keep on repeating the basics as so many have different ones. Not always obviously.

Actually if you want to learn one language and English at the same time just go to the country which language you want to learn. There are a lot of people from the UK, US and Australia traveling with whom you can practice English as well. Super easy.

2) Because of your job/studies

It happens all the time. You finally managed to establish your fat ass in the office chair, got some people working for you or your department and suddenly you’re confronted with that big word “outsourcing”. What does that even mean, you think. I’ll tell you: you lose your job or you move.

In today’s global industry where it is cheaper to have stuff produced in developing countries this is quite common.

Other reasons of course are freelancers who prefer working at the beach or the mountains or in New York City than back home in a boring, smelly office. Or even teachers who go abroad and teach their native language. There also other jobs, like this one girl who lives in Tokyo and goes out for dinner with Japanese business men. Nothing more. Just dinner. She’s earning quite a lot.

Of course, there are also more upbeat reason to travel for business reasons. If you’re a model or artist for example. Photographer, scientist, author, translator, hotel tester, flight attendant, you name it. There are a bunch of jobs out there which require you to travel. Some more, some less. And these are obviously the dream of every traveler. Then there are jobs where they send you to another location every let’s say 2 years for example.

There are some occupations you can do that’ll fill your need to live out of a suitcase.

In a similar way are students who do a foreign semester or even a whole year. This mainly means you stay in one place but at least you got the opportunity to discover the surrounding areas, depending on how much free time and money you have.

I have met several of such people all with different backgrounds. Quite a few people who did an abroad semester stayed in the country, or the surrounding ones, to travel a bit before the next semester back home starts.

3) To run away

This is a more psychological reason. Also there are several reasons why you want to run away. It might be a tough breakup with that girl you thought you would start a family and then you find her cheating on you in your own bed with your best friend Greg on your birthday. Shame on you Greg.

Or you got fired, or you can’t deal with your friends/family anymore, or simply because you feel that you’re “stuck” in your life.

Of course there are many more but I want to keep it short. Additionally, I’m not a psychologist or anything so I do not really know what is going in people’s minds. I’m left with my brain which is enough sorrow for one person.

Personally, I haven’t met anyone who was travelling because he ran away. I might have as I think those who do that for this reason don’t want to admit it as, to be honest, most of the times it’s something bad that happened.

Maybe you’re just bored and rich and have a friend in Mexico you haven’t seen in a while. I’ve seen that before.

Quite a similar reason but a bit more upbeat is…

4) To find yourself

Julia Roberts did it and a bunch of 40 year old women followed. Of course, I’m talking about Eat, Pray, Love. I might be wrong as I never read the book or saw the movie.

Again you might feel “stuck” in your life. Did I study the right thing? Do I like my job? Will I still like in 20 years?

All these questions we all probably already asked ourselves.

A time off from everything seems like a good idea and it is. You will learn so many good things about yourself. You start to accept yourself and others. You forgive yourself for mistakes. All in all you become more patient and more aware of what you want. At least that is in my case and I guess many can relate to that.

You start experimenting with things you’ve never thought of before, you eat different things or even start watching for your nutrition or might change it completely, you finally beat that bad habbit you never really could, you hear interesting stories that help you solve some problems as others have been in the same point and so much more. I could write a whole entry about it but someone else already did this.

When Eat, Pray, Love came into the cinemas I honestly thought: “another shitty movie about an old chic who is just unsatisfied with her life”. Now that I’ve been doing this myself and realize how much I have changed. I see her situation in a different angle. At least now I can understand it why one does it. Once again you rise and grow way more than you’d expect.

5) For a new start

This is somewhat similar to No. 2 and 4. Again it might be for a new job or whatever reason else. The main difference here is, however, that most of the people want to stay somewhere else whereas other ones want to keep going, maybe.

Quite a good friend of mine who left his home country for Spain was traveling a bit Spain before and then decided “I like this place, I stay here.”

Of course pretty much all the owners of backpacker hostels who were traveling there before and decided “This place needs a hostel.” And thank you for that.

Not always you go to another country because of your job but I guess that is the most common reason.

6) For love

I’ve met Maria and Ricardo, she’s Spanish, he’s Irish. They met in Australia and now travel around the world for a bit. I met other couples who do the same. Might be for honeymoon or just because you felt like that. You might feel to spice up your relationship again or you just love each other so much you want to show your beautiful wife off as many times as possible and preferably in different countries as well.

The other big reason to travel for love is that you love somebody, and we all know long distance relationships suck, and you want to see your loved one in real life. A flight ticket is easily booked but you got to be careful as it can backfire when it’s a new love and you’re not really sure if both want the same thing.

A friend of mine lived in the US for a year and maybe 3 months after she came back to Germany this guy was standing in front of her door. But if you know she loves you back or even misses you it’s probably one of the best gift you can give somebody.

7) Because of a bet/to prove something

 When you’ve seen the movie Around the world in 80 days you know what I’m talking about.

A while ago, I read an article about the woman who is close to be the first woman ever to visit all 192 countries. So far it’s been 8 years (I think) and roughly 200,000 US dollars. $200,000 is quite a lot, yes, but when you think of it it’s not really that much. Just think of how much you would have to pay for your own house. Not including gas and water and everything you have to fix over these 8 years. And then you have seen the whole world and who can say that of himself. I can’t.

8) Because you already traveled a bit and now you’re addicted

The really dangerous travel bug is around and it’s keen to sting everyone who crosses its way.

It’s like with tattoos, only rarely it stops after one time.

I have two good friends who both became depressive after their first big journey. One of them even had to seek professional help. Sometimes the only really thing you can do is to go back on the road.

Either it’s just the feeling you have when you explore an unknown area or you’re missing that one burger in Mexico and you have to go back and satisfy the itch in your fingers.

“Yes, it’s my third time here but I just love it that much” is a phrase I heard several times. Closely followed by “I was here a while ago and wanted to see how much it has changed.”

In my case this will probably be Colombia. I can already see myself how I will drop by every other year just because it’s so nice but that’s a story for another time.

And finally, the thing we all love after a long trip…

9) To go home

Not so many times but it happend. I heard the story of how people grew up in a different country and now wanted to go back home, to see how it is or even to visit relatives. Actually, some also travel to other countries because they have friends or family there but I kind of put this in one point.

You have a personal relationship with your destination whatever it may be.

I met one guy who was raised in the States and came back to Colombia to visit his grandparents and to see his home country. He was two when he left and officially is a American citizen. He told me that back home people made fun of him as he was too Colombian, in Colombia they made fun of him as he was a Gringo and couldn’t speak Spanish that well.

Well, it can be hard but I guess nobody can take that feeling from you when you finally come back home after a long, long time.

This was my list for some of the seemingly never-ending reasons to travel the world. Why am I traveling I hear you asking. Well, it started out to practice Spanish and ended up being a mixture of running away and finding myself. I mean the journey is still not over and I like that. Going as far as possible.

Let me know why you are traveling or if I forgot your reason to travel in the comments below.

Safe travels!