In the summer of 2022 after graduating university I went backpacking in Southeast asia accompanied by a few great friends. The trip was a once in a lifetime experience, particularly because so many of us got to travel together and we were all very close.
We travelled primarily across Thailand and Vietnam enjoying every momen of it. I particularly loved the experience of backpacking from the daily grit of getting from place to place on precarious busses and walks in odd neighbourhoods as we got lost. The food was delicous, trying authentic thai dishes and powering through the spice trying not to crack in front of the eldverly woman serving us on a street corner. We were fascinated by the odd-ball travellers we’d meet at hostels and at attractions that we’d become best friends with if just for a night, minus the degenerate British kids that we all came to hate as a nation for their boisterousness and ignorance. We revelled in the culture and were awe-struck by the temples, hectic street crossings, and stunning islands. Being in a very foreign place to anything we had experience was an eye-opening experience.
As we adventured through the humid and sunny days, we often found ourselves starting our days with a semblance of home. We would head out from our hostel in search of a breakfast spot that had the basics of an american breakfast – eggs, bacon, bagels, fruit, yogurt, black coffee. We sometimes would be crazy and order an english breakfast just to change it up. To this day I’m not quite sure exactly what Thai people eat for breakfast.
This was a regular occurrence for me as I travelled for 3 months across Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Italy. I’d forgo immersing myself in the culture just for the first meal of every day, partly for a little bit of home and partly for a high-protein option to start the day. It’s hard to look in the mirror and see muscle mass fade away from day after day of 30,000 step days and pad see ew, pasta, pho, and whatever else I stumbled upon.
While I travelled for 3.5 months straight, others I was travelling with opted to end their trip early or go home for a week or two just to escape the daily grind of backpacking. It is hard for me to sympathize with that desire to cut a trip early because I fell in love with travelling on that trip, but I can understand why they burnt out. Resisting the urge to zone out from the onslaught of experience allowed me to fully enjoy what I was doing once I headed out in pursuit of my goal experience of the day. We had relaxing days in the sleepy mountain cabins of Pai or swimming at the beaches of Koh Samui, but doing these things still presented brain-stimulating new experiences. Some may say this is a need of our smart-phone generation to have non-social scrolling time occasionally, but I think other generations would do the same with a book or other media they would want to indulge in to tune out the constant inbound around them.
Allowing yourself to do this without judgement or remorse was key to being present exactly when you want to be. When you finally get to the top of the mountain to see the temple that everyone had been saying was a must-do, you want to be able to be wowed by it, and not shrug it off as just another temple or cathedral or beach, as hard as that can be. As a new traveller came into the hostel on day 1 of their once-in-a-lifetime trip, I would want to have the energy and desire to engage with them, because that’s what I would have wanted when I was at peak energy on my trip.
It’s likely personality-type based, but as a Type A social person, I did often experience guilt for not being fully present or for being fatigued in these situations from over stimulation. For me, it came from a place of wanting to be fully present for this amazing trip that I was privileged to be on. I had painted a picture in my head of this trip from the tips I read on Reddit or guides and travel reports I watched on YouTube. I had a feeling of missing out when I wasn’t able to be my ultimate self in a social interaction or at an attraction, because when you are not willing to indulge in the unexpected from fatigue, that is when you could potentially miss out on a new adventure that would become the greatest memories of your trips. That is what I remember most from my trip now being the unexpected moments of bliss or chaos that were not found from getting out there more often and having an inviting attitude toward them. I needed to accept that every second of long-term travel or backpacking is not a scene from a movie. There will be uninteresting times from resting and omitting yourself from the chaos, so that when you jump back into it you are bushy tailed and ready to do so.
To get to those unexpected moments, you need to be ready for them and if you are exhausted from travel, you will not be ready for them. I view myself as an energetic and positive person, but I need to be more kind to myself when I am in moments of boredom or rest. Resisting those moments creates a life of constant desire and stress, leading to being blind to the moments of spontaneity that will become great memories that are waiting around the corner. Those moments will come if you look for them, but being active out there looking for them and sitting wishing they would happen is not the same. So eat the american breakfast so you are ready and willing to go find the Pad See Ew from the elderly Thai woman on the street corner in Bangkok.
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Picture is from Honduras but it works.
I could expand on philosophy of travel a lot more and likely will in the future.
Lucas Aikins 
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