After complaining about my stale life, i decided it was time for a change and booked a flight to Bangkok. As someone who is rather shy to put it mildly, i was surprised by this, but went nevertheless. So i was on my first long haul flight, alone with a chinese man sitting next to me, who could not speak english but told me through his translation app, that the "Weather is beautiful today".

After a long and tiring flight i arrived in bkk and suddenly everything was different. It felt like walking in a dream. Crusing the chao phra river to find the place i would stay for the next few days.

The first month or so was horrible and full of loneliness. The i decided to book a dorm, after the hostel i picked had no singles left. Best decision ever. Luckily got into a good dorm and instantly realized what solo travel is all about. Continued to have an amazing time in hanoi..made friends with a vietnamese and many other interesting people. Suddenly they were there...with me...a typical basement dweller. From zero to 100 in one flight...ok...a few more but you get what im hinting at.

To my surprise, i would not find it overwhelming at all. Of course, there were challenges, uncomfortable situations...but all in all, mos things worked out. I noticed my lack of skills in many situations but i knew that it couldn't be any other way and that there was nothing i could do about it. So i didn't do anything about it.

I would continue to Cambodia, learned a lot about choosing the right hostels and about group dynamics. About tuk tuk drivers too Learned about the creepiness of phnom penh, met junkies, fraudsters and good people. Fell ill in sihanoukville and drank too much. Went on to see the wonders of Angkor and was blown away. Decided spontaneously to go to lao as well ... loved vang vieng, the nature and the party... a real intoxicating blend.

Went back with more contacts than i have made in years of studying and miss quite a few of them. Its cold here and i have settled into my old life...pretty much, yeah. People are much less polite, but there is inexpensive cheese. So thats the silver lining. I know i can't and won't stay here forever. I want to go back..or perhaps somewhere else? To know that there is a place where people are friendly, mostly interesting and willing to socialize makes me angry i didn't do it in my twenties or earlier...but such is life, full of mistakes but also full of hope.

Lovely post thank you.
Congrats with the things you did

Congratulations!

yessssssssssssssssssssssss

Thank you.
Another thing i want to add is, the number of people i met who had tried psychedelics was staggering. A lot of people are having the opportunity to try mushroom in the form of "magic shakes" for the first time. I remember sitting in a bar in cambodia and suddenly a girl in our group would rave about her first mushroom experience she had shortly before. Or...i was talking to a dude in a bar in Vietnam and he flat out asked me "Have you smoked DMT?"...without having talked about psychedelics before. He told me he wanted to try it and has a special interest in freebase dmt. I hope he will register here in the future...

And then there were people who never heard about psychedelics before but i could see their eyes widen as i talked about my experiences. Sometimes i would not tell, but sometimes i got the feeling that a particular person might be interested..or it might be good for them.

Just beautiful.

Im very glad to hear about your trip obli! These experiences certainly can mmake one grow and learn a lot about oneself.

Be well brother!

I have learned that so much depends on the environment for me. People tell me that everything comes from the inside but not for me..maybe for the buddha.

Nothing has carried over from my trip. It's just the old me just with more frustration because i know there is a better life to be had. But traveling for all your life can't be a solution..or can it?

Everyday i'm angry and stressed out.

Some people do live traveler lives for years, or their whole lives... but that isnt the only solution.

Are you back in the same house/appartment/city as before? Maybe a change in that can help. Indiubt nothing carried over from before, but routine and old physical surroundings are powerful in maintaining a certain habitual behaviour and mindset.

Dont be too hard on yourself, changes arent always immediate. I hope you can find somewhere or something that motivates and fulfills you. If that is what you want, start working towards it, maybe brainstorming ideas and once you have some ideas down, selecting the best one(s ) and coming up with a short,mid and long term plan towards it.

Be well!

interesting.
travel is good for ya.


i went around the world 3 x
2x before i was 21.

i could have picked anywhere to live,
but, since 1993 , ive been more less stuck on a single caribbean island.
partly by choice, partly by fate.
now i dont travel AT ALL.
1 mile from my tower and its a big deal really.
i walk the beach to work, and friends come see me from wherever.
shopping is across the street , downtown is a 3 minit scooter ride.
im the no go anywhere girl.

for me to be so far from home i cant crawl back wasted in a coma, is rare.
you can be total traveled or total homebody,
what counts is , who ya are, and what ya make it under your feet.

my thing on this is simple......
yes everywhere is different.
but its also always the same.
yes you can change places and change fortune.
but you can also change yourself and change fortune almost anywhere.

there is advantage to being on the go.
its good to be anon in a new land.
there is also strong advantage in neighborhood.
i love my doorman.......and likewise.

the key is to evaluate what your out for.
see what ya need to see, pick a spot, and run with it.
it worked for me.

im glad i saw everything.
but ,im also glad everyone knows me on the island.
when i went broke, the island people saved me.
i could have gone anywhere broke, but ya go where they love ya most,
i picked this place for community, and won back my life all around.

i suspect thats what were all out for , bio harmony with environment and others.
live the legend and get it. always make it under your feet.


and remember, the nexian is always well traveled.
wether we leave the house or not.

Seems like a no-brainer to me:

* Travelling makes you happy and obviously has a therapeutic effect on you
* Staying at home makes you stressed out and angry

I'd say start travelling again, until you have the urge to go home. When you get angry again, start travelling again. I mean who wants to be angry?

If finances are an issue:

That is true and i went straight back to where i came from; a life that isn't very fulfilling to me. Actually, while away i had the sense of being my own man for the first time ..maybe...or i forgot how it feels. Of course it can get exhausting but you are in a new exciting place with new and interesting people who all want to have a good time. In SEa you are also able to live at a higher level when it comes to consumption...you can be in the center of the city where all the action is and have 1$ meals everyday. Also cheap smoothies



It is not, because im not in my twenties anymore and i feel i would like to have a homebase of some sorts with real friends. Not meeting people and then saying goodbye a day later and then crying over them. I also like to further my financial situation and traveling seems very counterproductive. I envy those who are in their twenties and away. Amazing, these people are emotionally stable at this young age and the world is their playground. Hard for me to get because my youth was completly and utterly different (it was about: Can i go to the supermarket and not Can i go to cambodia?)

Thanks for the encouraging words.

Hi there,

Great post regarding SEA. I've been there a few times, its a fantastic place and easy to travel around as there are so many other travellers doing the same type of thing.

I recently visited Angkor wat as well, it really is astounding. I loved Cambodia, its a country that has seen incomprehensible horrors, but the folks there are still incredibly warm and welcoming, its staggering really.

I (like you) am no longer in my 20s and am unable to travel in the same way I did when I was younger. The responsibilities of life tend to take precedence as you get older, and unless you want to live life as a perpetual nomad, there's not much to be done about that. I don't have the desire to travel quite as much nowadays, but if I've got the 'back home blues' I always think it helps to start planning my next trip. At least then you've got something else to look forward to / get excited about. It will help you to remember that how you feel now won't be forever, as you'll soon be jetting off to some other exotic location :-)

India is another fantastic location to visit. Its a little tougher travelling than SEA, a few more hassles, but even more rewarding. It's the kind of place that gets under your skin :-)

Hi there,

Nice 'trip report'. I love travelling and have been to many different places but it can be a bubble. It's the sense of freedom which I enjoy the most from it and there are times when I wish I didn't have to go home, but I think that travelling indefinitely can be another strategy for not dealing with what makes us unhappy at home. When we're away we are truly living in the moment and coming home can be quite depressing. It's nice to look forward to the next trip but its better to try and work on making our present moment happy otherwise we spend a lot of time wishing our life away.

That said though I also think it's an excellent way to learn about yourself and experience new things and you do get to meet some great people. I find I always eventually end up gravitating to like minded people and I've made several lasting friendships my from travels.

I have only been to Thailand in SEA but would love to visit the places you mention, plus Sri Lanka and India. I would highly recommend a trip to South America at some point.

I am glad you had a good trip friend, sorry to hear that you haven't had any lasting benefits from it though.

Happiness does come from the inside, I am still trying to figure out what happiness means but I know that much. You were happy on your trip because you were not focused on past or future, which it sounds like you do in your 'normal life'. Make the most out of the present, take a walk through a park if you can, instead of worrying about work the next day. These thing have worked wonders for me.

I don't think constant holidays are a solution either, as you would be using a future event as a means to deal with the present. A permant move might be good though, maybe there are too many negative people and things where you live making it hard for you to be happy?

I personally don't think cities (especially large ones) are conductive of happiness. Look at a deer, it is content in the woods, that is its home and it recieves stimuli from it. We are only 200 years out of the industrial revolution, and 5000 years since cities started to develop, we haven't adequately adopted to our new enviroment. Any stimuli we recieve from television, computer games, shopping... isn't lasting, it only distracts us from the insanity of our lives, that material success is paramount.

Hey obliguhl!

That's great that you went out there and did that. I know its easier said than done, but try not to be so hard on yourself. I also find myself regretting a lot of the things I did/didn't do in my 20's. Over time I have learned to put a positive spin on it and now I feel like a better person because of certain issues I had.

There are so many beautiful places in the world that aren't going anywhere. It sounds like you are working towards travelling again, which is great. Maybe you can use a skill that you developed at home in a new and exciting place, even if it isn't across the world.

Hey oblighul,

Im in Saigon if your ever back round these parts should hit me up. I relocated here a while back. I didnt really travel I just had the oppurtunity at 31 to try living somewhere else and I didnt want to do the whole backpacking thing then end up back home with no money. I couldnt abandon my hobby of electronic music and wasnt carting a bunch of equipment around. I planned on a year and its over 4 years later now, I dont think I could go back to the western world but last year I went back and I appreciated a lot about it, I wasnt so cynical about my home country.

I also gained more confidence in myself and think this is why we regret not doing it sooner but yeah it certainly improved my life, theres far more personal freedoms here and I love the peoples whole blase attitude at times, pretty laidback but can be annoying at times lol It has turned into another rat race really and a lot of people get this 4/6 month honeymoon period then they get depressed and reality is still reality, like a change of scenery isn't going to suddenly make you happy, well it does but its not a lasting fix.

It does take a lot of adgjustment but the positives far outweight the negatives for me, but I have a famly now and life is not that different from back home no doubt.

I just realised this post is a few months old, how do you feel about it now oblighul?

If you are ever back in Thailand send me a PM

Nice I want to do this too

Perhaps this is an old thread, but I have something important to impart to you. You are in control of your Self, and only your Self. You can do whatever you want to do, especially if you have the resources to be travelling the world. You know how deep it goes.
I'm learning to direct my energies, be they of joy and love or of anger and sorrow, into the proper vessels for their flourishing into beauty. Take extremely good care of your body, the root chakra, your mind and emotions, build Maslow's pyramid of Self Actualization. It is never too late. We all have regrets if we're being honest with ourselves. But that's another barrier to break through. Concentration through all states, no matter how dense or light, will bring us through the eye of the needle into the Action of sewing our seeds the way we need to most. It's all right here. The kingdom of heaven is within. I Love you and hope you find strength. You will. DO it. DO IT.

If you're looking for somewhere else to check out, Colombia is pretty , the people friendly and it's not particularly expensive.