Your GTG’s note to a newbie

Hi again globetrotters. My how the weeks fly past, April already! This week to mark our second anniversary your GTG will attempt a sort of what to expect when your expecting for travellers planning a long stay on their first trip away. After hearing a few stories recently that all seemed to suggest the same thing, I became fixated on the idea of how easy it is to bite off more than you can chew when it comes to the length of your first serious trip overseas.

In many parts of daily life we are faced with the unknown, or decisions that could classify as ‘taking a leap of faith’. With travel, this idea becomes part of the appeal, but is also best considered wisely beforehand. To be more specific, the stories involve both women and men, setting off on world wide adventures, working holiday visas in hand. Our protagonists left home, intending to wander indefinitely for a minimum of one year, only to return less than two weeks later, significantly poorer and traumatised with their tails between their legs.

 

In these recent cases, a few factors seem to have been ‘slightly’ underestimated, here are a few examples.

• The homesick factor- Well simply put, the older you get, the nastier the shock when you realise how much you’ve taken for granted the comforts of the familiar. Moral of this story, if the longest you’ve been away from home is a long weekend then perhaps a trial of a few weeks away within your own counrty would be a great place to start. Another handy tip if you’re sure you do want to go overseas is to have a return date which you can look forward to if things get a bit rough emotionally.

 

• What you actually do with your time- So just because people have the paper doesn’t mean they have a plan. Funnily enough a large number of these working holiday visas seem to go unused to their full potential. Even for those that have set sail all cashed up, there are only a certain number of tourist spots you can visit in a row before you have had enough and are in the mood for something more fulfilling.

 

• You learn from experience- What we’re getting at here is the idea that as a general trend in life, practice makes perfect. It is perhaps over ambitious to think that  we could possibly have all the essential skills necessary to survive in the wild by ourselves. There are of course many ways to get around this like going somewhere closer to your home culture, with someone you know who has travelled, for a shorter period of time.

 

With all of that in mind todays message is something along the lines of Billy, don’t be a hero, have a great time but save some cash for later. Until next week.