TRAVEL BURNOUT AND HOW TO FIX IT
16 Sep 2022 || ETHICAL TRAVEL ♦ RESOURCES
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If there is one thing that Instagram sells, absolutely perfectly, it’s the digital nomad lifestyle of nothing but parties, pools and palm trees. However, having followed a whole bunch of long-term travellers from all walks of life, the one thing everyone has in common is this concept of ‘travel burnout’, ‘travel fatigue’ or ‘travel exhaustion’. It’s a feeling of malaise and indifference; a craving for pizza when you’re surrounded by incredible exotic food; unjustified irritation about every subtle cultural difference. Just, sometimes long-term travel feels crappy. Utterly, completely crappy.
To anyone who only hits the road for a few weeks at a time, it might seem like an utterly tone-deaf problem to complain about, or simply an unfathomable notion (although travel burnout happens on shorter trips too). This lack of comprehension doesn’t make it any less real though. Getting burnt out by a lifestyle that others idealistically envy or don’t understand can make you feel guilty, which just exacerbates the struggle even more.
We have experienced this melancholic mood at very particular times during our travels and it’s an intriguing period to look back on (although not so fun to live through). Here’s what we learnt about the process and how to maybe resolve it a bit.
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IN THIS GUIDE //
Travel burnout and how to fix it
FIGHTING THE MYTHS OF LONG-TERM TRAVEL
THE REALITY OF LONG-TERM TRAVEL
THE SYMPTOMS OF TRAVEL BURNOUT
– MENTAL SYMPTOMS
– PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
CAUSES OF TRAVEL BURNOUT
WHAT TRAVEL BURNOUT WAS LIKE FOR US
ALLEVIATING TRAVEL BURNOUT
FINAL THOUGHTS
FIGHTING THE MYTHS OF LONG-TERM TRAVEL
Like we said above, it’s all palm trees, beaches, sunshine and beer, right? Well, not going to lie, sometimes it actually is. However, those times are interspersed with some heavy-duty, tedious days too. Long-term travel from the outside just looks like an extension of a typical two-week luxury vacation (maybe it is for super-rich people?). For normal-budget travellers though, there’s a whole bunch of miserable stuff that comes with it, sometimes daily.
Bloggers don’t tend to talk about it much. Maybe the notion that ‘travel is always wonderful’ must be upheld, no matter what, or perhaps that concept is what sells their products. Is struggling while travelling is considered a sign of weakness? Maybe it’s just difficult to articulate the emotions of the moment. Likely, it’s the discomfort of complaining about a privilege that very few get to have (it sounds a bit like complaining about having too much caviar, doesn’t it?).
Long-term travel *is* epic, don’t get me wrong (you will never catch me whining about it). It’s an exhilarating, challenging, unpredictable, almost never-ending adventure/disaster. It’s also a gross, gruelling, sometimes horrendous shitshow (literally in some unfortunate cases).
I wouldn’t even describe us as particularly dirtbag in terms of backpacking. We spend money, we love a crisp, air-conditioned bus as much as the next person and are not afraid of nice hotels. Despite this, we’ve still had our fair share of grim moments, enduring traumas and unwanted consequences over the years.
THE REALITY OF LONG-TERM TRAVEL
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My hair turns to straw no matter where I go; actually, straw might be too much of a compliment. I know other long-term travellers who had most of their hair simply fall out.
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In Honduras, I contracted giardia after eating butt-tube soup (looking back now this was obviously an error). During that time, I was given free tickets to Universal Studios in Florida. Not being one to pass up expensive stuff, I jumped on a flight and spent two days stood in queues and being flung around a bunch of rides, despite my giardia-inflicted body actively protesting. The day after, we drove 1100 miles without a break, all accompanied by my little parasitic hop-on. At the time, it felt like the worst week of my life.
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I got shingles in Laos. Eventually, after knocking back more tramadol than is medically recommended, a doctor told me it was caused by my immune system giving up after months of travel. He then went on to say that I shouldn’t have egg, salt, sugar, meat or alcohol; so like, apparently my entire Asian diet. Oh, and I should avoid the sun. How exactly?
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Somehow, I’ve contracted three different types of hepatitis abroad. No idea how.
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I have had an entire sea urchin stuck in my foot in Hawaii. The doctor laughed at me and didn’t charge me anything for the appointment.
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We’ve stayed in our fair share of rooms with no water, ants and even entire live bunches of mushrooms. The worst experience was bedbugs and a time when I was genuinely concerned there might be stripper bones under the bed (you should have seen the motel, seriously).
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I gain weight. Like, crazy amounts even if I’m super careful. Twelve pounds (or more) weight gains are not uncommon on a year long trip. Despite my efforts, my body just loves to be fat.
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My friend had a super-nauseating combination of a spilt Mooncup and baby piss on her backpack. No more details needed, but I hasten to say that it was pretty horrific.
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Nick spent an entire month in Ethiopia ejecting all food from his body. In every imaginable way.
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The smell of frying corn still makes me feel sick, months after I left Latin America. I get recurrences of nausea to this day. It’s a weird, unpleasant response to anything corn based.
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I get flashbacks of the agonising, unexplainable stomach cramps on a 14-hour overnight Mexican coach, every time I get a bus. If I feel a drip on my head, it has me reminiscing about the eight straight hours that a broken air conditioning unit dripped on me during a bus journey in Guatemala. The sound of buzzing insects forces my mind to a non-air-conditioned, 18-hour train in Vietnam that should have been 12, with giant wasps that I couldn’t escape from because a lady practically sat on my lap. The reminders are intermittent, but the memories always return.
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It’s the reality of being away from home so long. Occasionally unpleasant shit is likely to happen. It’s definitely not all parties, pools and palm trees.
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WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF TRAVEL BURNOUT?
Travel burnout is similar to the regular, day-to-day life burnout. Abruptly not having the motivation or energy for anything, whether it is university, work, health or even just hanging out. The symptoms are both physical and mental, which intensify the other.
All these mental and physical indicators are simply the signs of a crisis with your mental health. Travel burnout is, at its worst, very much like situational depression.
MENTAL SYMPTOMS OF TRAVEL BURNOUT
Depression and anxiety. Even if you do not have a history of mental health issues, depression and anxiety can get you at any time. It’s one of those things that grabs hold when you are most vulnerable. Being away from home in a foreign environment is likely to make you more susceptible.
Tiredness (not the amazing ‘just done a 14-mile mega-mountain hike’ type). This can simply be from not sleeping well; the standard trait of a backpacker sleeping in dorms and partying all night. It can also just be a morose, melancholy that is best associated with depression. A kind of tiredness you get because nothing is interesting, you’re bored and everything feels kind of gloomy.
Extreme irritation at the small things. In fact, this might be the only emotion you feel since you are so tired with everything else. It could be the smell of the place you are staying, the temperature, the sound of bike horns, maybe even the architecture. It could be dealing with the language.
Indecision. You just don’t care enough or have any energy to make a choice about something.
Homesickness. This one is something that lots of long-term travellers and backpackers feel. It can exacerbate that feeling of disconnection from your host community. Feeling alone as a long-term traveller is not uncommon, but it can actually originate from feeling burnt out.
Negativity, worrying and insecurity. These tie in with depression and tiredness. As travel burnout kicks in, doubts about your journey, purpose and ability start to creep up on you. This can be the ultimate downer that persuades you to book an early flight home.
PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF TRAVEL BURNOUT
Comfort-eating. A physical response to the misery of not enjoying your trip, feeling guilty and craving familiar things from home.
Sleeping all the time. Even if you get a decent night’s sleep, you still might just take some major siestas during the day due to lack of enthusiasm.
Missing your usual work out. Whether you usually go to the gym, hike mountains or just take casual strolls, neglecting to take care of your health is a common sign of burnout.
Drinking too much alcohol. Have a drink is an easy way to mask the boredom, misery, loneliness and discomfort that comes with travel burnout. The problem is, alcohol is a depressant, and in the end, you’ll feel worse than you did to start with.
CAUSES OF TRAVEL BURNOUT
So why do so many people suffer from travel burnout despite being on the most anticipated, exhilarating ride of their lives? There are lots of possible causes, which are difficult to determine since every person’s journey is individual.
Travelling too fast. This is often determined to be the primary cause of travel burnout in many traveller circles. If your trip has you rushing about, feeling like you have an attraction/state/country list to tick off, you’re always on a bus to someplace new and can’t remember the last time you took a day to do nothing – maybe logically this is the reason you’re feeling burnt out.
Your trip lacks variety. Spending far too long in similar destinations can absolutely drain your enthusiasm to the point where you no longer care. For us, it was colonial Mexican cities. I’ve heard that other people get ‘all templed out’ in southeast Asia, for example.
Drink and drugs. Too much drinking and a few too many mad nights out can make anybody feel like shit, even at home, let alone abroad. When your entire life is already a crazy, sunburnt mess, why add on a tonne of mental, mind-bending stress by drinking too much?
Micro-decisions. Long-term travel is not a vacation in any traditional sense. Your brain is always working and is hard to switch off. It could be finding the cheapest place to eat; navigating a new town; considering your safety at night; dealing with a sketchy stomach or trying to navigate a bus station with zero language skills, the number of tiny assessments is exhausting. Micro-decisions are a huge cause of traveller burnout, and they do not even get acknowledged most of the time.
Your health has tanked. This is an easy one to imagine – your food, drink, sleep and exercise routines are all up shit’s creek. You’ve not slept properly in a month, there’s no fruit and veg in sight, beer is the only fluid hydrating your body and walking to the local 7-11 is the furthest you’ve moved. It’s kind of obvious that this would eventually mess you up, isn’t it?
Not having enough money. Money is the backpacker bane and the lack of it is gruelling. Never getting a great night sleep because you only stay in dorms is tiring, eating the cheapest filthy fried street food for the fourth week in a row will get your immune system down, and just never affording any basic comforts can really exacerbate your stress, leading to burnout.
Sickness. I’ve been sick abroad, it sucks. It’s something that can really cause the homesickness to kick in. There’s no place I’d rather be than my own bed when I’m genuinely, seriously sick with more than just a hangover. This can be the start of a downward spiral if you don’t manage your health well.
Culture shock. This is a curious one. When I studied abroad at university, we had to attend a bunch of (seriously tedious) compulsory talks about culture shock and adapting to a new country. The information I learnt was surprising. Culture shock doesn’t happen as soon as you land, it comes in waves; it ebbs and flows. You might suddenly suffer from culture shock two months into your trip!
Jetlag. This is another unsurprising one. If you travel a lot, and fast, you may experience jetlag that could last for a fair few days if you do not allow yourself to rest and adapt. It could be the trigger for your travel burnout.
Too much excitement. Too much fun becomes a chore – stimulation can give you brain-ache after a while. When every beach blends into one, each epic meal blurs, the exhilaration starts to wane.
WHAT TRAVEL BURNOUT WAS LIKE FOR US
Mexico and central America are where we suffered most from significant travel burnout. I never thought I could feel so despondent, so apathetic, especially in a place I knew I previously adored. I was sick of every smiling face; tired of my clothes never seeming quite clean enough; indifferent to the magnificent sunrise glow, cast across the wall of my hotel room each morning. My clothes didn’t fit quite right anymore, the smell of everything corn-based made me queasy and I just wanted to go home.
My head felt like it was full of cotton wool; I was in a perpetual, drowsy, lethargic stupor. Everything lost colour; I was existing in black and white.
It was a creeping sense of dread for the next day and a feeling of exhaustion, even though I wasn’t lacking in sleep. I have memories of detesting the pretty, colourful colonial Mexican cities; even the timbre of the Spanish language bothered me.
The scarcity of budget vegetarian food choices made me so irate. I was so despairing about the food that I ate pizza daily for about a week, always takeaway in my room. I also went through a very bizarre phase of craving traditional British fish ‘n’ chips, which I never, ever, eat at home. This was the same craving that I had when living abroad in Canada for a year, it was odd.
The heat and humidity started to get to me; not in a ‘it’s a bit sweaty’ kind of way, but a ‘I refuse to leave the room because it made me feel sick’ type of problem. I started fantasising about being anywhere else, spending hours looking at entirely contrasting destinations, places like the Middle East and India. I dreamt of rugged deserts, camping, curries and mosques to replace the steamy jungles, corn and churches of my ‘daily grind’ (it was hardly a grind in reality).
Even when I went out, my surroundings didn’t interest me. I stopped picking up my camera and was preoccupied by whatever crap popped up on my phone. I actually started reading those spammy emails from ‘Hello Fresh’ and, for whatever reason, learnt about every opera on at the ‘Deutsche Oper Berlin’ (why are they emailing me?).
Planning our next move became impossible. We accepted defeat and flew to Mexico City, thinking that it would resolve our lethargy. For a few days, Mexico City was a dream: an exciting, multicultural, less colonial metropolis. We stayed for a month, recognising that stopping was meant to improve our mood. However, our enthusiasm continued to steadily plummet.
Long story short, after another short jaunt through central America, we ended up in Oman. A month camping and off-roading in a country that had almost nothing in common with Latin America. It was a complete joy and suddenly I had no more fatigue. No more exhaustion. No more depression. I felt alive and free again.
To this day, I regret not leaving Latin America sooner. I realise that it is just not my preferred area of the world and for whatever reason, it becomes uninspiring. We tried everything to counter our travel burnout and get our enthusiasm back, but it ended up taking an entire change of continent.
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Helping Alleviate Travel Burnout - Is there a Travel Fatigue Cure?
What can be done to mitigate the misery of travel burnout? Even better, can we prevent it from happening? First, try to recognise the signs and intervene as soon as possible. Then consider the below options to try and lift yourself up a bit.
Find the ‘right’ destination for you. It is one that doesn’t feel exhausting, either due to safety, sickness, climate, money or food. There are just some places in the world that you can exist for longer periods of time more comfortably.
Help your immune system. Like I mentioned, my immune system was so terrible that I got shingles. Watch what you eat and ensure you get enough rest. Consider taking vitamins if you are struggling to eat healthily. Something I do when feeling run down in warm countries is increase my electrolyte intake. It really, really helps my energy levels (I’m always a sweaty mess).
Reduce expectations of yourself and your destination. If you set your ambitions and expectations too high, you leave yourself at risk of feeling tired and disappointed. Stop attraction or country counting, it’s generally not a healthy approach. We travel to experience places, not to rush through them.
Do some less touristy stuff. Go to the cinema, cook a meal you would eat at home or go to the gym. Do anything that is chill and reminds you of your routine at home.
Slow down. This should be your top priority. If slowing down doesn’t help, then stop. Just stop completely for a while. If you are travelling long-term, spend an entire month in one place. You can sort out a routine, restore your health and avoid the tourist circuit for a while. Maybe take a class or volunteer (ethically) to give yourself purpose. Choose a new (or existing) healthy hobby, like writing or drawing. Intentionally schedule down-time days.
Cut out alcohol and caffeine. Ok, so some people will never cut out caffeine! Alcohol though, you can definitely go a week or so without to see if it improves your mood.
Avoid dorms to help sleep and routine. If you can afford a cheap private room somewhere, do it for a few days and take full advantage of the solitude. If you can afford an even nicer, more comfortable room, do that. A better bed, aircon (or fresh air), and quiet will do wonders for your mental health. You could even rent an apartment or house that reminds you of your own, or head out to the countryside.
Crack out the sexy eye mask and ear plugs. If you’ve got to stay in dorms, at least try and block all the other people out.
Cut down screen time and use your short-frequency blue light filter. This is important before you go to sleep. Screens really mess with your sleep quality. Sleep quality messes with mood. It’s all linked.
Take a break from traditional backpacking. Go to a nice hotel for a couple of days, hop over to an island for a week, even rent a car and go on a bit of a road trip. Anything that feels like vacation from your dirtbag level of backpacking.
Sort out some of your responsibilities. It might be your finances, calling your family or backing up your photos. If life away from travelling is getting you down, it is worth taking some time to address those issues.
Reflect on your privilege. This doesn’t always help, but in some circumstances can be very grounding. Sometimes, telling yourself to get your shit together because lots of people have it worse just doesn’t help. There will always be people more and less privileged than you are. However, considering what you are grateful for and writing a journal can be cathartic. Journaling is a great way of keeping track of your travels anyway, so use it to help your mental health too!
Consider some casual counselling online. If all else fails, it’s not crazy expensive and just chatting to somebody outside of your immediate bubble might provide the perspective you need. Loads of people do it.
Final Thoughts
I’ve felt travel-tired so many times, but luckily, it’s rarely for more than a week at a time. Even then though, it’s a miserable existence, with guilt and fatigue the primary emotions. I don’t think it is possible to guarantee avoiding it, however recognising travel burnout for what it is gives the best chance of overcoming it quickly.
Having spent a bunch of time thinking about this topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe retitling travel burnout as ‘travel depression’ may be more accurate (I’m not a doctor though so I don’t get to do this!). The symptoms are the same and the solutions are similar to advice you’d get at home if a situation was making you depressed. It just seems like a different name for the same thing.
If you are seriously struggling with depression, whether at home or abroad, speak to a professional. No amount of blog-googling can substitute the advice from an expert.
I genuinely hope that if you are having a shit time while travelling right now, you feel better soon. Does any of this stuff I’ve written help (or hinder)? Let us know in the comments below, or contact me directly.
