There will always be excuses to forgo a trip. Bills, cars, home, over-consumption during the year and so on. It’s all about prioritizing. Once you master that, you’re good to go! Do you really want to spend $1,000 on electronics or would you rather spend it on a plane ticket? You make choices every day! And unfortunately, most of us cannot afford to have everything so we have to pick!

You’re healthy today but you may not be tomorrow. The next best thing I hear is: “I plan to travel when I retire”. This is by far the worst excuse in my books.  What normally happens at retirement is that you have more free time but unfortunately, most people are not healthy enough to travel the world and see all those places they’ve been wanting to see since they were young. Will you be healthy enough to travel when you retire? Who knows? Anything can happen in the next 40 years! So why wait?

There is one thing to keep in mind: Travel smartly! Setup a saving program so you can save enough money to travel but stay within your budget if you don’t plan to work abroad while traveling. The last thing you want is to be in debt because of traveling. That will stop you from delaying any future plans you have, such has buying a car, a home, etc. I’m all for living your life to the max but you need to do it smartly.  Be patient. Save your money. And go!

All in all, if you’re healthy, have some vacation weeks and a bit of money, just do it! Live today because you never know what can happen tomorrow!

Many people often ask me, what is Europe like? Or how is life in Europe? I’d like to say that it’s an easy question to answer, but unfortunately it isn’t. My personal opinion is that life is more appreciated in the old continent. Sure when you live in America, you are considered spoiled, we have everything they have; the difference is that we don’t pay attention to the details. For example, when we wake up in the morning for our daily routines, we usually stop by Tim Hortons for a fast cup of coffee or we prepare one at home, all under the rush of not being late for work. In Europe, things are a little different. People tend to wake up earlier and take a walk to the bar and socialize while having their coffee before heading to a hard day of work. This style of life is easily observable in the Irish, Italian and arab community in Montreal. The whole aspect of socializing, being connected and building bonds is a lot more important then it is in our culture.

Another important point that distinguishes Europe from America is the whole work aspect. What I mean by this is that here in our beloved America, we live to work, but in old Europe, they work to live. It’s a big difference that can easily change your perception on life in general. For instance, in the village that my family is from in Italy, Aielli, after a hard morning’s work in the fields, the men come back home for lunch and eat with their family and cherish that moment. Here in America, we are timed for one hour for lunch, you have to punch out, go eat, be back on time and get right back to work. Maybe a fast phone call to the kids and wife or husband, but it still doesn’t give you much time. So you’re getting my point right? It might sound like a microscopic difference but I think it has a big impact on the European way and vision of life. This said, I strongly suggest to all the readers and backpackers out there to experience this by yourselves by travelling Europe and visiting the cities and villages in the old continent. A big high five to Tanya and Nara for the liberty of letting me write this non-political related article.

Being a backpacker is really wanting to be free and creating your own adventures. However, you need to have it in you in order to get the freedom you want because really most individuals are scared to travel solo or to travel to another country at all.

Beijing, 2007

You must be a free-spirit individual who can take any occasion and turn it into an eventful one. Since backpacking is really about creating stories and discovering new things. A backpacker is also someone who stays in hostels – the cheapest ones, budgets everything including food, and takes the cheapest transportation paths. Now all backpackers have different styles, but really this summons it up in who we are. We are missing one thing though; we have an obsession in stumbling over to country to country and never getting bored of adventures.

San Fran, 2006

My backpacking love, started when I traveled Europe for a year in 2005. I traveled with a good friend for a month, lived in Ireland for about three months, and traveled solo for the remaining. Now, most people and even backpackers thought I was crazy in traveling as a solo-women traveler. Yes, there were moments I was freaked out and had to make quick, smart decisions, but really they made my adventures more interesting. I explored new places, party when I wanted to, met lots of people in whom are great friends to this day. Out of that entire year I traveled 17 countries in Europe including a little hike over to Morocco, Africa. It was a year of amazing adventures especially for an 18 year old who just left high school. I was young, but eager to create my own experiences, and still has not stop. Every year I now take a backpacking trip to somewhere in the world.

Border of Chile & Argentina, 2009

So why become a backpacker, while when reality hits and the day to day job can be a little boring, why not spice it up a little? Grab your backpack, book a flight and find yourself in another country. Trust me once you start you will never want to stop. Plus life is to short, so make the most of it!

Most people, either 1. think I’m crazy- which I’ve grown accustomed to or 2. think that I try to run away from it all every time I mention the words “travel” or “backpacking”. I can deal with being crazy because being normal is definitely overrated. But running away from reality?

I would describe myself as one crazy person who loves to travel! But does having a passion to travel mean that I’m trying to escape my life at home? NO! It simply allows me to get away from typical (and normal) cycle of Western life- school, work, marriage, house, debt, kids, retirement. And to this, let’s add that every step of the cycle needs to be accomplished by a certain age- otherwise, there is definetely something wrong with you! So instead of having people talk about me because I don’t exactly want to fit in the cycle of life established by society right now, I decide to backpack and have people talk about that instead. I’ve heard it all…“You should stop traveling and stay home so you can settle down”, “You’re crazy to want to travel to these places”, “It’s dangerous”, “Why would you want to travel alone?”, Why would you prefer to sleep in a hostel instead of a hotel?”, “How can you consider going to the Amazon a vacation?”, and the list goes on and on and on and on!

Backpacking allows me to completely disconnect from all of this. It allows me to do things that are abnormal to most people living in the West: venture off into the unknown and learn about a completely different culture, eat weird food, talk to stangers, sleep in random places, wander off in potential dangerous places and do adventurous activities!

Let’s face it, we all have our different way of escaping reality: some disconnect by listening to music, or watching tv, or playing xbox, or reading, or being a workaholic, or shopaholic or even an alcoholic. So I guess I’d be considered a travelholic. So the next question you should ask me is not “Are you traveling this year?”,but should be “Where are you traveling this year?”. It’s simply a question of time.

So no- I don’t consider myself as someone wanting to escape my life at home- I just always have a craving to learn something new and be out of my element. As we live in a world that has so much to offer, how can we choose to settle and follow the normal course of life before going out there and exploring the world? 

This article was inspired by Nomadic Matt’s article Everyone Says I’m runing Away http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/everyone-say-im-running-away/