When I first started traveling, my dad used to ask what I’m running away from with my travels. Another time, a commenter told me to stop running away from my problems and to start living life. “Grow up,” he said.

And, years ago, there was even a blog called “Mom says I’m running away.”

I’m not sure why, but there is this perception out there that anyone who travels long term and isn’t interested in settling down or getting a conventional job must be running away from something.

We travelers are running away from responsibility, being a grown-up, heartache, problems, etc, etc. We are all just Peter Pans refusing to be “adults.”

While American society thinks traveling is something everyone should do at one point, it’s only gap years after college or short vacations that seem to be acceptable. Get it out of your system and come back into The Matrix.

Those of us who lead nomadic lifestyles, or who linger just a bit too long somewhere before reaching that final homestretch, are all too often accused of running away.

Yes, go travel — but not for too long, the world says. Responsible people don’t just travel forever.

We nomads must have awful, miserable lives, or are weird, or have had something traumatic happen to us that we are trying to escape. People assume that we are simply running away from our problems, running away from “the real world.”

And to all those people who think I am running away, I say: you are right.

I am running away.

I’m running away from your idea of the “real” world.

I’m avoiding your life.

I’m running towards everything — towards the world, exotic places, new people, different cultures, and my own idea of freedom. I’m building a life that makes me happy.

While there may be exceptions (as there are with everything), most people who become nomads do so because they want to experience the world, not escape their problems. They are running away from office life, commutes, and weekend errands, and the corporate 9 to 5. They are running away from the strict path society has laid out as “normal.” The one that makes us mindless ants marching to and fro.

We (I) want to experience every culture, see every mountain, eat different food, attend crazy festivals, meet new people, and enjoy different holidays around the world. We want to construct a life that makes us happy on our own terms.

Life is short and we only get to live it once. I want to look back and say I did exciting things and lived life on my own terms, not say I spent my life reading blogs like this during my lunch break while wishing I was doing the same thing.

No one dies saying, “If only I had spent more time in the office!”

As an American, my perspective might be different. In my country, the accepted path is long and narrow: you go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house, have 2.5 children, raise them, and then retire. Only then, after you’ve put in your time, can you enjoy the fruits of your labor. Society boxes you in and restricts your movements to their expectations.

And any deviation is considered abnormal and weird.

People may want to travel, tell you they envy what you do, and say they wish they could do the same thing. But they never do. Few people muster the courage to take the leap, no matter how much their heart pulls them. They are simply fascinated by a lifestyle so outside the norm.

While social media, the rise of digital nomading, and websites like this have made quitting your job to travel the world or teach English in Thailand a little more acceptable, the general attitude is still “follow the path if you want to be normal.”

Well, I don’t want to be normal.

I feel like the reason why people tell us we are running away is that they can’t fathom the fact that we broke the mold and are living outside the norm. To want to break all of society’s conventions, there simply must be something wrong with us. (Maybe they are a little jealous too?)

But life is what you make it out to be. Life is yours to create. We are all chained down by the burdens we place upon ourselves, whether they are bills, errands, or, like me, self-imposed blogging deadlines. If you really want something, you have to go after it.

People who travel the world aren’t running away from life. Just the opposite. Those that break the mold, explore the world, and live on their own terms are running toward true living, in my opinion. We have a degree of freedom a lot of people will never experience. We get to be the captains of our ships.

But it is a freedom we chose to have.

We looked around and said, “I want something different.”

And then we went for it.

It was that freedom and attitude I saw in travelers years ago in Thailand that inspired me to do lead the life I am now. I saw them break the mold and I thought to myself, “Why not me?”

I’m not running away.

No.

I am just running towards my own idea of a normal life.

And I never plan to look back.
 

How to Travel the World on $75 a Day

My New York Times best-selling book to travel will teach you how to master the art of travel so that you’ll get off save money, always find deals, and have a deeper travel experience. It’s your A to Z planning guide that the BBC called the “bible for budget travelers.”

Click here to learn more and start reading it today!

The post Everyone Says I’m Running Away appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Who am I besides just a guy who loves to travel? What do I do when I’m not on the road? What are my interests? Do I have hobbies?

Since I’m more than just a writer and travel fanatic, I wanted to share a bit about who I am and what I do when I’m not on the road (indulge me for one article).

While I do post a lot of my day-to-day life on Instagram, here is a little bit about me and my life!

1. I hate flying. I love airports, lounges, and elite status, but the act of flying makes me sick. I don’t like heights and any turbulence makes me think the plane is about to crash. I’m not a good flier and I take Xanax to calm me on most flights. (Ironic considering how often I fly!)

2. I never traveled independently until I went to Costa Rica at age 23. My travel experiences up until then were a series of road trips with my parents and a drunken weekend in Montréal when I was 19. (I also never went west of the Mississippi until I was 25.)

3. I decided to travel long-term after meeting five backpackers in a shared taxi while on vacation in Thailand. I was so amazed at what they were doing that the next day I decided to quit my job and make long-term travel my goal. They were two Australians, a Canadian, and a Belgian couple. They changed the course of my life and have no idea.

4. When I was younger, I wanted to be an archaeologist because of the Indiana Jones movies. I eventually went to school to be a high school history teacher and taught for one year, but then the economy tanked and no one was hiring history teachers so I got a job doing administrative work at a hospital in Boston before I started traveling.

5. I’ve had three really bad incidents on the road. On my very first trip by myself, I got terrible food poisoning. I was hospitalized for three days and put on a morphine drip. Second, I popped an eardrum in Thailand. And, third, I got stabbed in Colombia, which is definitely the worst thing that has ever happened to me!

6. I am a good cook. I don’t cook much on the road because I hate how hostel kitchens aren’t fully stocked and everyone crowds them at the same time, but once in a while, I like to cook a massive meal for my fellow travelers. However, when I’m home, I cook a lot and even host dinner parties for my friends. Some signature dishes include shrimp scampi, this delicious tomato/basil/olive salad, stir fry, and baked salmon.

7. I used to be a vegetarian. After reading Fast Food Nation, I decided to give up meat and was a vegetarian for four years. It wasn’t eating meat I was against, but rather industrial farming and the chemicals/antibiotics in the meat that I didn’t like. I gave up vegetarianism when I started to travel.

8. I think it’s rude to turn down food in other cultures. If you go to a village in Mongolia and you are given food, it’s insulting to refuse. “Sorry, your traditional and heartfelt cooking doesn’t go with my dietary needs.” It’s culturally insensitive. But that’s a rant for another post.

9. I’m a huge fan of soul, Motown, blues, and jazz.

10. If I could ever pick what time period I could live in, I’d pick 1920s Prohibition America. I think that would be an exciting time to live in. But maybe I’ve just read The Great Gatsby too much.

11. Speaking of Gatsby, I learned to swing dance so I could throw myself a Gatsby-themed birthday party. I did it for three years in a row. They were epic birthday parties.

12. After travel, politics is my second love. I live and breathe politics, and it is the only news I keep up with while traveling. I am always ready to discuss and debate the world any time of the day and with anyone, no matter how well I know them. (However, in the last few years, I’ve turned off listening to the political news every day because it was causing me a lot of anxiety and not a good use of my mental energy!)

13. People always ask will I be nomadic forever. My answer: I don’t know. Forever is a long time. I travel less now than I used to and I think I’ll continue to take fewer trips but I still travel a lot when compared to the average person. For now, I’m enjoying the ride and see no reason to hang up my backpack just yet.

14. I’m a Japanophile. I love everything about the culture: the food, the history, the etiquette, the landscape, the architecture — all of it. I would eat sushi every day if I could.

15. I’m an unabashed Taylor Swift fan. She has a song for every emotion and, when you listen to her non-pop hits and really get into her catalog, you see just how talented of a songwriter she is. Listen to The Last Great American Dynasty. She wrote an entire narrative arc in three minutes. That’s seriously good writing. I went to the Eras Tour multiple times. I love her.

16. I’m also a huge fan of Sia. Incredible songstress and writer.

17. I don’t drink coffee. It tastes like shit to me. And I don’t want to put added sugar or milk (or soy milk) in my cup of joe. Drinks should be able to stand on their own! Nothing is going to change my opinion on this. I’ve tried for years to acquire a taste for it. It’s just not going to happen.

18. I drink tea. Lots of it. Especially green tea. That’s my drink of choice! I’m a big fan of the brand Rishi.

19. My alcoholic drink of choice is an old fashioned. A few years ago, a few friends turned me onto whiskey and I’ve been obsessed since. I judge a bar by the quality of the old fashioneds they serve.

20. One day, I’d like to learn how to garden. I want to grow my own food. I love cooking and think it’s a logical step.

21. I used to be a semi-professional poker player. I funded a lot of my original trip with poker winnings and lived in Amsterdam for a few months playing “professionally” at the casino in the city.

22. When I was younger, I worked for the Sierra Club in Massachusetts. I created a PowerPoint that we took to different community organizations to show that, by being energy efficient, they could save money and the environment at once.

23. When I was in high school, I played a lot of Magic: The Gathering and won my state’s championship (my friend came in second). We won a trip to NYC to play in the national tournament there. I lost in the first round.

24. I don’t eat sweets. Maybe once a year I’ll have a cookie or brownie but, for the most part, I don’t do desserts or sweets as I don’t like all the sugar.

25. When I’m working, I’ll often play one song on repeat over and over again. It helps me focus because it ends up just being white noise. As I write this post, I’ve been listening to Sweet Annie by Zac Brown Band on repeat for the last two hours.

26. I don’t have a favorite color. I have two: blue and green.

27. I was one of the spokesmen for Asiana Airlines. I did a commercial for them that aired for two years on TV. They dubbed out my voice though. It always sounds so weird when I watch it.

28. I love movies. I probably watch two or three a week, either in the theater or at home on Netflix. My friends and I have group chats dedicated to movies.

29. My favorite liquor? Scotch, specifically peaty Scotch from Islay. (My favorite brand is Ardbeg.)

30. I want to learn how to shoot a gun. Not because I’m a gun nut — I strongly dislike them, want really strict gun control, and am a regular donor to Everytown for Gun Safety — but because I am one of those crazy “preppers.” I think the world is pretty much f*cked, and I’d like to know how to shoot a gun to (a) protect myself in case civilization ends and (b) hunt (another thing I want to learn how to do) for food when that happens or (c) the zombies come. Having a Plan B never hurt anyone, right?

To that end, I’d also like to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow. I think that would be really fun — and useful.

31. I spend an hour a day reading. I’m a big fan of biographies and travel, history, and business books. I think reading and educating yourself is one of the most important things you can do in your life, and I cannot understand people who don’t read books. In your typical year, I’ll read around 50–70 books. You can find a list of all my favorites here.

32. I’m a morning person. I tend to wake up around 7am and do my best work before lunchtime. On a good day, I’ll get up at 6am.

33. I’ve gotten way more into the gym in the last year. I go to the gym six days a week and do pilates one day a week. Going to the gym often has a positive knock-on effect too: once you start going to the gym, you end up eating better and drinking less because you don’t want to ruin your workouts. I’ve gotten into a lot better shape the last few months and I plan to continue that this year.

So there you have it! Some more interesting facts about me. Well, things I think are interesting at least.
 

How to Travel the World on $75 a Day

My New York Times best-selling book to travel will teach you how to master the art of travel so that you’ll get off save money, always find deals, and have a deeper travel experience. It’s your A to Z planning guide that the BBC called the “bible for budget travelers.”

Click here to learn more and start reading it today!

The post What I Do When I Don’t Travel appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Big news everyone! The Nomadic Network (TNN) is back! TNN is the community we built for travelers back in 2019. TNN’s goal was to connect fellow travelers through in-person meetups all around the world.

In 2020, we shifted to virtual events, connecting you to a wide variety of voices that could teach you everything from budget travel to itinerary planning to travel insurance to finding friends to information about specific destinations.

We also ran 25 tours around Europe, the Middle East, and Mexico. Seeing all of these connections between like-minded travelers form true friendships was truly awesome and unforgettable.

However, last summer, I realized that I wanted to focus my time more on writing books. That meant that I needed to scale back all my business endeavors so I made the difficult decision to pause TNN while I figured out a way to keep it going while balancing my new goals.

I’m happy to say that I figured it out and TNN is back!

One of our amazing TNN chapter leaders who has been with us since the beginning offered to take the lead and keep the community and tours alive. So, I’d love to introduce you to the person who will be running TNN going forward: Lisa Field!

Lisa has been a proactive, inspiring community member who has stepped up time and time again over the years. Aside from hosting the Portland chapter’s monthly meetups, she attended at least 100 virtual events (!!), hosted a few events herself, and repped TNN at travel conferences. Here is us at TravelCon earlier this year:

In 2019, she began building a travel blog with international travel tips and hacks and joined The Nomadic Network (TNN) as a founding chapter leader in Portland. She’s even ran local tours, offering hikes and snowshoe trips around the Pacific Northwest.

So, when she offered to take over TNN, it seemed like a natural fit. Who better to lead the community into its next phase than a member of the community! That is, after all, the purpose of TNN. I wanted a place for travelers to find “their people” and change their lives for the better.

So, what does this mean for you?

I’ve given control of everything over to Lisa: the website, the infrastructure, the email list, and all social media accounts.

Moving forward, you’ll be hearing from her. She’s getting everything set up to start hosting events in the fall and tours again next year. She’s going to keep the ethos of the program the same so the same spirit and vibe you’ve been used to will live on.
 

TNN Community Events

First, it means TNN events are back. Starting this month, TNN will host a few events geared toward connecting travelers to people and resources that get them traveling differently, better, and more. These events will still be pay-what-you-can to allow for as many people to access them as possible.

Here are the first few:

• August Travel Happy Hour (Thursday, August 22)
• September Travel Happy Hour (Thursday, September 12)
• Value Travel: Finding the Balance Between Budget and Experience (Thursday, September 26)
• October Travel Happy Hour (Thursday, October 10)
• Depth Beyond Distance: Insights into Enriching Travel & Life (Thursday, October 24)

And, if you’d like to be a part of the Portland, Oregon chapter, they are hosting monthly in-person meetups around the city. You can sign up for that here.
 

2025 TNN Tours

These tours will be very similar to the TNN tours of the recent past. They’re still centered around traveling with like-minded travelers. They’ll still greatly prioritize hands-on cultural experiences and special, local interactions.

They’ll also still lean toward budget consciousness, however, all of the accommodations will be at least three-star (everyone wants/needs a good night’s sleep after all) and tour prices will include many expected gratuities, to make it easier.

Additionally, they’ll have an option for adding a carbon offset, and Lisa herself will be traveling on each and every tour herself!

Use the code “LAUNCH” to get $200 OFF when you register for any tour before Sunday, August 18th, 2024 at 11:59 PM PT.

Here’s a quick overview of the amazing tours happening in 2025:

India

(March 9–20, 2025) – Dive into India’s vibrant culture and history, from Delhi’s bustling streets to Agra’s awe-inspiring Taj Mahal and Jaipur’s stunning pink palaces. Savor a special dinner with a local family, witness the Taj Mahal at sunrise, and immerse yourself in village life with traditional crafts and lively Bollywood music.

A highlight? Celebrating the world-famous Holi festival in Jaipur, joining locals in a joyous, colorful celebration of good triumphing over evil. This unforgettable adventure promises royal elegance, cultural richness, and the enchanting beauty of everyday life in India. More details here.

Vietnam

(March 24–April 4, 2025) – Embark on our unforgettable 12-Day Vietnam Odyssey Experience, journeying from Ho Chi Minh City’s vibrant streets to Hanoi’s ancient temples. Discover Hue’s imperial citadels, Hoi An’s lantern-lit charm, and Ninh Binh’s stunning landscapes with a local homestay. Glide through hidden caves on a sampan boat and hike through verdant rice paddies.

If you want, you can even choose to extend your adventure with a magical three-day add-on to Bai Tu Long Bay, drifting among Halong Bay’s emerald waters. This trip promises an immersive bucket-list experience of Vietnam’s beauty and culture. More details here.

Greece

(September 24-October 1, 2025) – Think you know Greece? Think again — there’s so much more beyond the typical highlights. We’re diving deep into this incredible country, from Athens’ vibrant contemporary art scene and street food delights to the charming villages of Tinos and the historic allure of Naxos.

In Athens, we’ll savor the city’s best street food and take a private tour of the iconic Acropolis. On Tinos, we’ll experience hands-on organic cooking at a historic farm, and in Naxos, we’ll taste local olive oils at the Eggares Olive Press.

For those craving more adventure, our optional Santorini three-day add-on includes a breathtaking caldera hike and a sunset catamaran cruise with dinner on board. More details here.

Peru

(October 23–Nov 2, 2025) – Journey through Peru starting in Cusco, you’ll explore the ancient Inca Empire, historic sites, and vibrant markets before venturing into the Sacred Valley. Enjoy a day of hiking on the renowned Inca Trail, leading you through lush cloud forests to the breathtaking site of Machu Picchu, where you’ll witness a sunrise over this iconic World Wonder. Discover the secrets of Maras’ salt mines and Moray’s agricultural terraces, then immerse yourself in local life with a homestay on Lake Titicaca’s Amantaní Island. More details here.

Morocco

(November 6–16, 2025) – Join us on a captivating and colorful journey through Morocco! Start with the vibrant city of Casablanca and its breathtaking Hassan II Mosque, wander through the enchanting blue-washed streets of Chefchaouen, and then delve into the rich history and bustling markets of Fes after exploring the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis. Traverse the scenic Middle Atlas Mountains to Arfoud, where an unforgettable Sahara Desert adventure awaits with a camel trek, traditional music, and mesmerizing stargazing under the vast desert sky. Experience the stunning landscapes of the Dades Valley and the High Atlas Mountains, stopping at local cooperatives and immersing ourselves in the region’s serene beauty.

Finally, explore Marrakech’s lively medina, with guided tours, vibrant markets, and time to shop, explore, and savor the vibrant culture. More details here.

Since 2019, the TNN community meetups have been bringing travelers together, fostering connections and friendships. So if you want to meet like-minded people to talk to, swap travel stories, learn from, visit while you’re on a trip, or possibly plan a grand adventure with — be sure to check out The Nomadic Network!

If you want to stay up-to-date on all things TNN, sign up here.

I’m excited that TNN will continue to connect travelers and communities across the globe!

The post The Nomadic Network is Back! appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) is all the rage these days. Everyone is talking about how it’s going to change the world. It’s making waves in design, art, graphics, and contracts.

But will it change travel?

I actually don’t think it will that much. At least, not in the near term.

Here’s why:

The internet is littered with failed companies that tried to reinvent travel planning. They failed because people actually want to plan their travels, as it gives them ownership of their trip. People like researching restaurants, finding hotels, reading blogs and guides, and figuring out what to do.

All this lends a sense of discovery to the endeavor. Planning a trip gives people an emotional connection to their experience. Companies that tried to remove that have failed or pivoted to booking corporate travel.

Which is why I don’t think people will say, “Hey Google! Make me an itinerary for Hong Kong!” any time soon.

First, AI isn’t that great yet. It still scrapes (steals) content from blogs like this, or from outdated posts and old websites. I’ve played around with many AI sites, asking them to plan a certain trip, and I’ve gotten results filled with closed restaurants, poorly rated accommodations, and other outdated information. It will be a long, long time before AI whips up a good itinerary.

Second, travel is such an emotional, human experience. AI can’t tell you why you should go to a destination. It can’t give you a sense of place or capture the magic of being there in a way that inspires you. It can give you the what but not the why. It’s one thing to have AI whip up a résumé or explain how to do a push-up, it’s another to inspire you.

What is more likely in the near term is people using AI to book their hotel or flights. It’s not going to take much for such sites to understand what kind of hotels or flights you like. You can probably even give it parameters (“Never book a flight before 7am” or “I prefer Delta”) as well as show it your past booking activity in order to teach it what you like.

I suspect you’ll soon be able to say, “Hey Google! Remember that hotel (or walking tour company, etc.) I booked in Vienna two years ago that I liked? Find me something in Paris that is similar for X dates and book it.”

But I think we’re a long way off from AI bots that can plan a trip as good as a human. They just can’t provide information as well as someone with on the ground experience. While you can go to them for inspiration, given that these AI bots still generate incorrect information and you’d have to likely double-check their work anyway, I would just avoid using them all together. Stick to guidebooks, travel blogs, and content creators. At least for now.

The post AI and the Future of Travel appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

After eight years in Austin, I’m leaving and heading back to NYC full-time.

I first visited Austin in 2013, got hooked, and started coming back so much that I decided to move here in 2015. I was only semi-here my first couple of years. I split my time in NYC for a bit, traveled a lot, and lived in Paris for a bit.

But, in 2019, this became my only home.

However, over the last year, it’s become clear that the city and I have grown apart. The weird little town that drew me here as a respite from the hustle and bustle of NYC is no longer a weird little town but a big city lacking big city infrastructure. The traffic is terrible, my food truck parks are gone, it’s more expensive, and quirky Rainey Street is now all high rises and hotels. The city’s character has just changed a lot as Austin has become “the place to be.”

Now, I’m not trying to be one of those “get off my lawn” people. I am sure people lamented folks like me coming and changing their city. Just as folks before them and folks before them.

Change is a constant in life and trying to stop change is like trying to hold back the tide. Austin can change all it wants. Not all of the changes have been bad. There’s a lot more to do in the city, there’s more jazz and comedy, better food, and the airport has more direct flights now.

But if Austin wants to be a city — and its local leaders seem to want it that way even as they bemoan the rising cost of housing — then be a city. Give us better infrastructure, more housing, bike paths, and public transportation. Austin has become a city but without any of the benefits that come with cities.

Last year, roaming from NYC to Paris to Berlin to London, I began to notice that the things I love about big cities aren’t present in Austin. I missed walking everywhere, museums, jazz clubs, public transportation, copious art museums, and diversity of people, ideas, and food. I missed the hustle and bustle that comes with places like NYC, Boston, London, and other metropolises.

I spent a lot of last year in Austin and, starting in October because of my allergy shots, I didn’t leave for 6 months. During all that time, I dated, joined social clubs, and built a life there.

But my heart just kept whispering, “This isn’t the place.”

Austin no longer feels like home. NYC has always had a piece of my heart. I want to go back and see how it goes. Will I spend 8 years there? I don’t know. By then, I’ll be fifty!

But, right now, I’m ready to say goodbye to Austin. After eight years, this chaper has come to an end.

The post Why I’m Leaving Austin & Moving Back to NYC appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Traveling the world is like becoming a child all over again. You don’t know what to do, where to go, or how to function.

How do you stay safe?

How do you get around?

How do you communicate?

What are the cultural norms you have to follow?

In each destination, you start from scratch and have to relearn how to do the most basic of life skills.

You have to rely on the kindness of strangers. Without them to guide and teach you, you’d be lost. From locals who give you rides to people who help you when you get hurt to those who just tell you where to go or invite you into their homes, you need their guidance and assistance the same way a child needs an adult’s.

Every day on the road, you are learning what to do for the first time and how you have to rely on other people — just like a child.

Sure, this constant relearning is one of the tiresome aspects of travel. It’s a lot of mental work to constantly figure out whom to trust, how to behave, and how to get around. It is why long-term travelers always eventually slow down (and why people who travel too fast burn out). After a while, you just can’t be doing this every day. Your mental energy gets depleted. The brain burns out.

But it’s through this process that you really grow up. You come to understand the world the same way you grew to understand your hometown.

First, you get to learn how different countries operate. As the quote by Henry Rollings says, “A great way to learn about your country is to leave it.” By repeatedly seeing how other places operate, you get a sense of what your home country does right — and wrong.

It also gives you an infinite number of chances to improve yourself and how you do things.

We live the majority of our lives on autopilot. We get up, we go to work, we run errands, we watch Netflix — and then we do it all over again the next day. We know where to eat, where to shop, how to get around, and what places to avoid. We know the exact route to get to the grocery store and we’ve done it so many times that we just can kind of zone out on the way there as we think about the million other things we have to do.

In our day-to-day lives, we follow routines. Our minds don’t constantly need to do “the work” of figuring out how to live.

And any book on psychology will tell you how important that is to function as an adult. We need routine because we only have so much bandwidth per day to make decisions. Routines allow our brains to work better and focus on more important tasks. Without auto-pilot, we couldn’t function.

But, on the road, you have no routines. Every place and situation is new. Everything you do requires active decision making.

Think about just finding somewhere to eat. In a new destination, if and when you find a restaurant, you don’t know what to order, what’s good, what’s bad. All of it is a mystery. Every time you want to have a meal, you have to decide: Does that place look sketchy? Am I going to like that food?

It’s exhausting.

But relearning how to decide where to eat, over and over again, helps you improve those processes. In this case, you get to know the universal clues on what makes a restaurant good. You learn how to eat alone. You learn what you like.

Whether it’s finding something to eat, ascertaining how to get around, figuring out how to locate information, or learning to trust people, I think because we travelers have to do it so much, we develop enough different mental pathways that we become better at decision making in general than most people. We just have more experience.

The same is true in dealing with people. Because language isn’t universal, I have to figure out every day how to communicate with people who don’t understand me (and vice versa).

But in doing that so many times, I’ve gotten better at reading people than I would have if I had only ever encountered those who live in my hometown. That constant, taxing work — while draining — has produced dividends over a lifetime by being better able to communicate and interact with and understand a variety of people.

And in the end, all this work makes you a more independent, confident, and mature person. You grow up with a better sense of who you are, what you want, and how the world functions.

Traveling may be a lot of work. It may be mentally taxing. And it may make you feel like you’ve regressed as an adult as you wander helplessly from destination to destination. But, in the end, all that rewiring makes you a better person.

The post A Quick Thought on The Nature of Travel appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

The term “budget travel” has long been synonymous with “cheap travel.” Finding deals, getting off the beaten path, eating at “non-touristy” (i.e. inexpensive) restaurants, and staying in hostels. The budget traveler is on a quest for a “local” experience at a low cost.

During the 2010s, the rise of sharing economy websites like Airbnb, increased competition in the travel industry, and the growing number of budget airlines offering long-haul flights made traveling on less a lot easier to do.

And travelers took advantage: global tourism rose from 946 million annual travelers to 1.4 billion over the past decade.

However, this spiraling growth created a lot of backlash among residents, as many destinations weren’t equipped to handle so many visitors driving around, clogging streets, and raising the cost of living. Plus, locals didn’t like feeling like they lived in a zoo, constantly being gawked at by tourists.

Pre-COVID, overtourism became the hot industry topic. “How do we make travel more sustainable?” we all wondered.

And, despite the recent rise in prices post-COVID, traveling is still relatively affordable, especially compared to historical averages.

But is inexpensive travel really a good thing? Should it be so cheap if it means it’s also unsustainable?

I know that’s a weird question for me to pose, as I’m in the business of budget travel. And don’t get me wrong: I don’t think travel should only be for the wealthy. Travel opens the mind. It helps people understand the world, those who live in it, and themselves. So, I want to be very clear that I am not advocating that travel be out of reach for all but the elite few. I think every person in the world should be able to see more than their little corner of the world.

But should we enable a type of mass tourism that creates a lot of environmental and social woes?

Looking around these days, I think we have too much of a good thing. I think there should be some tighter restrictions on travel so that we don’t love places to death.

I backpacked a lot back when Wi-Fi, apps, and smartphones were not widespread and you still had to use a paper guidebook to get around. (Even then, though, people would tell me how hard travel “back in the day” was and how easy I had it with the advent of online booking platforms.)

There were plenty of ways to travel cheap back then — it was just that the information you needed was harder to find. I learned so much that first year, but it was information discovered on the road, not online or in print. They were tips and tricks I found through people and experiences.

The growth of travel blogs like this one, as well as through social media, has made information about how to travel cheaply a lot easier to find. No tip is a secret that hasn’t already been shared. No place in the world doesn’t have at least a dozen articles written about it. And one no longer needs to roam the streets looking for a place to stay or eat.

Heck, type in “Thai” into Google Maps on your phone, and you’ll get nearby restaurant results with directions, saving you from wandering around!

All these new services and technological developments I mentioned in the beginning — coupled with easy access to information — have made travel so affordable so quickly that I don’t think most destinations have had time to adjust.

Take Airbnb. Its rise has led to overtourism, housing shortages, noise issues, and other social ills. Gone are the days when you are actually staying in someone’s home. Now, you are more likely to be in someone’s tenth rental property, where there are no standards or rules, especially regarding safety.

What happens if there’s a fire? Is everything up to code? Who knows!

And that cute neighborhood you wanted to enjoy so you can get a taste of local life? That’s full of tourists staying in Airbnbs now too.

And, like anyone else, I don’t like paying a lot for airfare, but all those cheap, short-haul flights mean lots of people going to places not designed to handle them all (see the weekend trips to Amsterdam). Plus, short-haul flights have the highest environmental impact.

Do we need a tax on frequent fliers? Or restrictions like the ones we are seeing in France.

With the rise of digital nomadism and remote work, people are getting up and moving in record numbers again. (Don’t get me started on those skirting visa and work rules.) This means lots of people living in places where they don’t pay taxes or adapt to the community, or where they cause other issues.

Just look at Mexico City. I love it, but the increase in the number of Americans living there has produced a big backlash among locals, who are now getting priced out of their own neighborhoods.

And think about waste. Plastic bags, electricity, even your poop. I’m sure it’s a subject you never really consider when you travel. But what happens to all the waste you produce? Are the power plants, sewer systems, and trash management systems of that beautiful Greek island meant for the 20 million extra people it sees a year? No. They aren’t.

And cruises! Cruises cause a lot of problems (and I say that as someone who likes them). In 2017, Carnival alone caused ten times more sulfur oxide air pollution than all of Europe’s cars (over 260 million) combined! That $50-a-night cruise might get more people moving — but not so sustainably. Santorini during cruise season is a nightmare.

The solutions to these problems are complex and will require the industry, consumers, and governments to work together to make sure tourism is sustainable.

You can’t stop people in popular destinations from wanting to make money to feed their families. And I don’t blame a lot of locals, especially those on the lower end of the economic spectrum, choosing living over protecting a nearby marsh.

I think, as travelers, we should be more willing to vote with our dollars and decide: are we going to be good and make sure we leave no trace, or are we there to treat destinations as zoos, parachuting in for a “local experience,” taking a few photos, and then heading off, leaving a wake of social and environmental headaches for the residents who live there?

Yes, it’s not the budget traveler who is causing a lot of these issues (they tend to avoid big hotels, eat local food, take public transportation, and stay longer). But they still cause some. A body is a body.

This leads me back to my original question: should travel be so cheap that it causes so many people to descend on certain destinations they buckle under the strain?

While we all want to spend less, I think it’s time to ask ourselves what are we taking and what are we leaving? What is the impact of cheap travel on destinations and the people who live there?

Yes, hotels and traditional guesthouses are more expensive, but, unlike Airbnb, they are licensed and don’t take away from the local housing stock.

Yes, a train might be slower and more expensive, but short-haul flights are worse for the environment.

Yes, we all want to see Venice in the summer, but the city can’t support that many people at once.

I think the solution is not less travel but better travel.

When I see cities imposing taxes and fees and restrictions on things like Airbnb and cruises, I can’t help but say, “Good!” There should be more restrictions on Airbnb and cruises, as well as other forms of mass tourism, to ensure that destinations can handle the crowds and that the locals are not displaced or otherwise negatively impacted.

Over the last few years, we here have put a real focus on sustainable travel, alternative tours, getting away from Airbnb, traveling in the off-season, and reducing waste, because I’ve become a lot more conscious of the negative impact travel can have when there is unfettered growth.

I think everyone should travel, but the unintended consequences that the rise of cheap travel has created need to be addressed.

As travelers, we can do a lot. We can avoid environmentally harmful travel, reduce our flight use, avoid Airbnb, and go to “second-tier” destinations — or at the very least not the tourist centers of overcrowded cities.

As “top-tier” destinations crack down on overtourism, people will have to go to other cities, which will spread the tourist numbers and dollars around while also showcasing new destinations and unclogging more popular cities.

Plus, when you go where the crowds aren’t, you tend to have more unique and fun experiences.

Will more rules and restrictions lead to higher prices? Probably. Does that mean not as many people might get to visit Machu Picchu or Petra or Japan? Possibly.

And, as someone who wants more people to travel, I admit that that kind of sucks. Even though there are plenty of other destinations to choose from, it still sucks that some of these changes will lead to some people being unable to visit some of them.

But, as we think about sustainable travel and its impact on the world, we can’t deny that people moving around in such large numbers has negative consequences. We need to come to grips with the fact that many places can’t handle so many people and that some restrictions are needed if we hope to keep them around, even if that means we won’t be able to see them all.

Travel is a give-and-take relationship between the destination and the visitor. We must be willing to give a little more and take a little less.

Our job as travelers is to make sure we aren’t hurting the locals and the environment. That means traveling as sustainably as possible and doing no harm to the local community.

Because there’s no point in going somewhere and then leaving it worse off. We can’t love places to death.
 

How to Travel the World on $75 a Day

My New York Times best-selling book to travel will teach you how to master the art of travel so that you’ll get off save money, always find deals, and have a deeper travel experience. It’s your A to Z planning guide that the BBC called the “bible for budget travelers.”

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The post Should Travel Be Inexpensive? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Before my first trip around the world, I was driving through Boston with my friend Mike. I was talking about how excited I was about my upcoming travel and how I was looking forward to seeing all the changes that would happen in Boston while I was away.

Where would my friends be in life? How would they have changed? What jobs would they have? New hobbies? New relationships? What would the city be like?

The possibilities seemed endless.

“Matt, everything will be exactly how you left it,” he said. “Look, when I studied abroad, I thought the same thing. But in truth, nothing will be different when you come home. Everything and everyone will be the same.”

“A lot can happen in a year, Mike.”

“I’m telling you, Matt,” he continued, “life will be just the way you left it. You’ll see.”

When I came back home eighteen months later, I realized that he had been right. While I had changed, home hadn’t. My friends, now heading into their late twenties, still had the same jobs, were going to the same bars, and were mostly doing the same things. They were still the same people I had left before.

Moreover, Boston itself just felt the same. It had the same vibe as it had had before. There was still construction everywhere, and the restaurants were still the same.

Mike had been right. While I had grown, home felt like it remained frozen in time.

And while I still loved my friends, family, and city, I realized I didn’t fit into Boston anymore. It felt small to me. I had outgrown living there.

However, the worst part was I now had this fire in me that I couldn’t express to anyone I knew. I yearned to try new things, go new places, and meet new people. But my friends couldn’t understand why I was so depressed about being back. They didn’t want to hear about my trip or all the cool things I did while they had commuted to and from work.

To my parents, it was like I was equivocating on my place of birth. To my friends, it felt as if I was now “too cool” for them.

But it wasn’t that.

As Benjamin Button said, “It’s a funny thing about comin’ home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.”

After the initial excitement of being home wore off, I had become restless. I had post-travel depression.

Returning home is hard and few people address the reality that it’s often an anticlimactic end to a life-changing experience.

After a year of mind-blowing adventures, you‘re back where you started — sitting on a couch, back in your apartment or your old bedroom, bored, anxious, and jittery. Your friends don’t understand the new you, don’t want to hear your stories, or don’t get why you feel so uncomfortable.

“What? You don’t like it here anymore?” they’ll ask.

But it’s not that you don’t like it.

It’s just that you went from 100 to 0 faster than you can process.

You feel as if you came back to the exact spot you left. You’ve gone from backpacking the world and trekking in jungles to sitting in a cubicle. One minute you’re your dream you, the next you’re the old one back in an office that yearned to be free. And you feel like you never really escaped your old life after all.

And that’s depressing.

Anyone who has ever traveled the world has felt this.

After you come home, when the initial hugs are hugged out, the stories told (to those who will listen), and the reunions over, many of us find that our true home is being surrounded by the unknown.

Every time a friend comes home from traveling, their first question to me is always, “How do you cope with post-travel depression?”

There is no real cure for the post-trip blues. The only real way to get over post-trip depressions is to stay busy. You talk people online, go to meet-ups, or plan your next trip. Keep that energy you had on the road going. Go out, sightsee in your own town, take road trips, find a hobby…do something.

Because the more you stay still, the worse your depression will be.

But it only ever fades as more time passes. There’s no cure other than time. It’s like getting over a relationship. Sure, you can stay busy but it’s only as time progresses that you slowly begin to move on.

When you were traveling, you viewed every moment as an adventure. View your life back home as one too. Stay busy. Stay active. Try new things. Keep that adventurous, can-do attitude.

When you do that, home will feel a little less suffocating.

How to Travel the World on $75 a Day

My New York Times best-selling book to travel will teach you how to master the art of travel so that you’ll get off save money, always find deals, and have a deeper travel experience. It’s your A to Z planning guide that the BBC called the “bible for budget travelers.”

Click here to learn more and start reading it today!

The post Post-Vacation Depression: Why It’s Often Hard to Come Home appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

This post has been in the works for the last six years. I’d write it, delete it, write it once more, only to delete it again.

There just never seemed a right time to hit publish. As it so often does, life got in the way, destinations got backpacked, business got busy, and, eventually, COVID came and blew a hole in my plan.

The years went by in the blink of an eye and I was no closer to making my goal a reality.

And that goal? To quit blogging.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love what I do. I love travel. I love this website. I love the community we have here.

I love working in travel and I plan to continue to do so…just in different ways.

I’ve been running this website since 2008 and have written over 1,400 articles. That’s roughly three million words.

Add in 300 destination guides and two books (one with three editions) and that’s a lot of writing on travel.

In all that writing, I’ve laid out pretty clearly how I feel about travel and what it can do for you. I frankly just don’t have much more to say on the subject. I feel I stopped really adding any new thoughts to the nature of travel years ago and that often I’m just rehashing topics I’ve talked about already.

And, as I wrote in a blog post a few years ago, the fundamentals of travel don’t really change that much over time. Sure, apps, websites, and services come and go, but the basic why and how (travel like how locals live) remain the same.

Fourteen years after I started blogging from my living room, I’ve also changed. I like high-end restaurants as much as I love food trucks and street food. I’d often rather stay in a nice hotel with a comfortable bed than a hostel (I don’t sleep as well as I used to and it’s more productive for work).

Sure, I still carry a backpack, and sometimes I yearn to meet other travelers and so will stay in a hostel. But I don’t do it as much as before. And, as a result, I don’t have my ear to the ground for those hardcore budget travel tips and new apps the way I used to.

Last year, I’ve found balance in my life, and this year is going to be a continuation of that. Last month, I was approved for a mortgage, and, after this current trip to Mexico, I’m going back to Austin to buy a house. A house I would like to stay in for more than a few days at a time.

At the beginning of the year, when the team and I had our annual goal-setting meeting, I gave them more control over the website. They will be running the day-to-day operations, and Chris, our jack of all trades, is now our Director of Content.

I want to settle down more, start a garden, join social clubs in Austin, have more regularity in my life, and just be on the move less. I want to travel more intentionally, without always an eye toward “how can I blog about this.” I don’t want to take pictures of menus anymore or go around to grocery stores looking up prices.

And I want to write more books and that requires more focus and routine too. It’s hard to write a book when you’re always on the move.

In light of all this, I’m stepping back from blogging. Moving forward, this website will become more of a resource and less a personal blog. That doesn’t mean I will never write a blog again. I will still have stories to tell. They will just be a lot less frequent and more sporadic. (Case in point: It is mid-February and this is the first thing I’ve written all year.)

Moreover, now that the pandemic has stopped wrecking our finances, we’re going to bring in guest writers again, so there will be different voices that can talk more to various aspects of the road that I no longer can.

I’m sure as this blog changes, some of you will move on. After fourteen years, you’ve probably changed too — and I get that. I mean, there are very few blogs I started reading in 2008 that I still read today.

But, as I think of the next act in my professional career, “writing blog posts” is not really something I want to do as much. I’m going to focus on other aspects of travel — more books, big events, group tours, and community meet-ups — things that bring people together in real life and that take me out from behind the screen.

So, while we might not connect here as much, we’ll connect in other ways. The fact that I meet people who have been reading the site since the beginning amazes and humbles me to no end. I still can’t believe that I’ve been able to build a career around blogging about life on the road and sharing my tips and stories. I appreciate you all to no end.

But it’s time to move on to other endeavors. After so many years, the timing is finally right.

P.S. – You’ll still be able to find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and in our weekly newsletter, which isn’t going anywhere.

The post The End (And a New Beginning) appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

At the end of 2020, I wrote about trying to recover what I called “the lost year” — the year in which I got COVID, saw all my businesses collapse, took out tons of loans to avoid bankruptcy, and, like everyone, had to put all my life plans (settling down, buying a house, joining some social clubs, dating) on a seemingly endless hold.

As the year wound to a close, I needed a mental break, so I went to Mexico with friends, with a plan to rent a house and stay in the Tulum/Playa area. Over the next seven weeks, I fell in love with the country and, specifically, Oaxaca. (Tulum sucked so we left.)

This year, the vaccine became available, many countries reopened their borders, and I headed back out on the road. I always describe travel like a battery, and, after over a year of being home, mine was overcharged. I was like a kid who had just been given back his toy after a long time-out. I wanted to play with it extra long, and nothing was going to get in my way.

I gave up my apartment, went on a road trip around the US, headed to Europe for a few months, came back and bounced around the States some more, experienced Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, went to France to see the Christmas markets in Strasbourg, Aruba for a friend’s wedding, NYC, and soon South America.

My friends joke that I am fully nomadic again. “We knew the settling down thing wouldn’t last.”

If it weren’t for COVID, though, it probably would have.

I still want all those non-nomadic things, and now I’m beginning to feel like my travel battery’s power gauge is getting toward zero. I’ve already decided to cut my South America trip a little short, and the last few weeks of frenetic travel have me thinking about shortening it even more.

But, as the year ends and I reflect on the last twelve months, it’s clear that 2021 has been anything but a lost year.

This not-so-lost year has taught me a lot about balance. I’m a Gemini, and while I don’t always subscribe to astrology when it comes to being “a twin,” that aspect of the sign is definitely me. I am often someone who goes from one extreme to another. It was all travel at one point for me — and then it was all about settling down.

I always thought my life was balanced, but the downtime COVID gave me has shown me it wasn’t as balanced as I thought. Now, after this life reset the pandemic has given all of us, this year has made me oddly feel very balanced between my extremes. (Life is all about that, right?)

I juggle three main plates: travel, work, and wanting a settled life in Austin. I am still perpetually pulled to new destinations and intrigued by long trips (“India? Well, I can only really see it if I go for six months, so I guess it’s time to give up that apartment again!”), but I’ve gotten better at learning that I have to accept shorter trips if I want to also have a life in Austin.

I’ve talked about my anxiety in the past, and, when I started my first Europe adventure this year, it (and the eye twitch that comes with it) returned in full force. My work and travel lives were unbalanced within weeks of being on the road.

Then I decided to finally make a big change: I upgraded my accommodations. I started staying in nicer guesthouses and hotels instead of cheap hostels and dorm rooms. It made a huge difference because having a good space to work from and not running around looking for Wi-Fi has made my days a lot less stressful. Better accommodation also led to better sleep and a drop in my anxiety levels.

So I went from one extreme (being stuck at home) to another (constant traveling) and found that the Buddha was right: the middle way is the best way. It’s not about having to give up one for the other but just finding a balance between them.

In that sense, the pandemic has been an educational experience, and, as this year ends, I feel a lot more balanced, free, and happier than I did in the past. I am much less anxious and more content with where I am. This pandemic fucking sucks and I can’t wait for it to be over but, as I look back on another year of it, I got to say it was a pivotal moment for personal growth.

As they say, it’s always important to look on the bright side of life.

Before I end, I just wanted to again thank you all for reading this website, sharing our tips, and everything in between.

We’ve lasted another year, and we couldn’t be here without you. I just really want to say thank you. When I started this journey in 2008, I never expected that so many people would read what I wrote or that we’d be able to organize events that brought together so many wonderful people. And, no matter how many years we do this, it still always amazes me.

So, thank you for another great year.

Have a great holiday season, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! See you in 2022!

– Nomadic Matt

P.S. – I know I’m incredibly lucky to be able to travel when so much of the world is under restrictions and so many are still unable to leave their home country. Traveling during the pandemic is a minefield of changing regulations, filling out documents, and constantly monitoring case counts and lockdown notices. (The rapidly changing rules around the Omicron variant are a case in point.) I constantly count my blessings that I can still go places.

The post The Not So Lost Year appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.