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To be clear, I'm not saying that traveling is a bad thing. I love it. I myself just moved to San Francisco ~3 months ago after a lifetime of living within abo

To be clear, I'm not saying that traveling is a bad thing. I love it. I myself just moved to San Francisco ~3 months ago after a lifetime of living within about a 100 mile circle of places on the East coast; a lot of these observations come from this experience. Ultimately, it's been a good experience for me, but it's not exactly what I expected from a naive point of view. Packing up and moving your whole life has some pretty serious consequences that are easy to gloss over. There's a big difference between a vacation of a few weeks to a month and actually living somewhere else. Being in SF, for me, meant living in an urban (vs. suburban) environment, which meant a variety of changes. Hopping in the car to go anywhere is no longer a requirement. It's also not an option if I want to get a load of groceries, unless I want to rent a ZipCar. Am I saying it's too hard to walk 2 blocks to the grocery store? No. But it's a new way of life. All these changes to your lifestyle can be exciting and fun, but they can also be stressful; especially so if you are (as I am not) socially isolated by language and/or cultural differences. For instance, one thing that was a hassle moving here for me, and would be worse internationally, is ADHD medication. It's a schedule 2 drug in the United States, meaning I can only ever get a month's supply, among other restrictions. So when I got here I had to get a new doctor almost immediately - and most doctors are reluctant to write a controlled substance prescription on demand. Again, I love traveling, and if I was reading this article about a DC company (where I used to live) and I still lived there, I'd be the first to sign up. But a lot of the differences are subtle, or unexpected, and you should realize that it can be - while enlightening, meaningful, and ultimately fun - a very stressful experience. It's sort of like the difference between telecommuting and working in the office - with google hangouts, teleconferences, etc, the communication should be the same, right? It's the same laptop whether at home or at work, right? And yet, for me, the experience is massively different.

gbog 13y ago
You love traveling but it is very stressful? Please tidy up your position. Obviously travel it not advised for those afraid of massive differences, and attached to homey comfort.
- JimboOmega 13y ago
  I said can be, not is very stressful. It's like our collective interest, startups: they can be very stressful, but also very rewarding. But there is still the matter of properly appreciating the risk, and really understanding what you're getting into, and protecting your fundamental physical security. There's a difference between committing to long hours of hard work with possibly no reward, and plunging yourself into debt by financing your business with credit cards. So it is with travel. It's easy to delude yourself into thinking that it'll all be fine if you just work hard and have an open mind. I think people tend to vastly underestimate the stresses of travel (Especially past college age). Of course, people coming to the US often have one of the hardest times (thanks, immigration system!), but there are just all sort of pitfalls that you'd never worry about on a week or two vacation - work visas being just the beginning. In other words, if you do it from a naive approach - without having considered some of the harsher realities of travel - you're going to have a bad time.
  - gbog 13y ago
    > It's easy to delude yourself into thinking that it'll all be fine if you just work hard and have an open mind. Work hard? For travel? You mean work hard to learn foreign language etc.? For me that's not hard. There is nothing hard to work on when travelling. If getting interested in other culture and open minded to differences is something one needs to "work hard on", then it is much better to just not do it. And it is OK. It is OK not to like travelling around the world. For young people it may be uncool, but uncoolness is much preferable to self delusion. It is ok to prefer home's bed, and to be not able to take a shit on a squatty, it is ok to stay home. But if you travel, basic curiosity and interest in the others is largely enough. Then you just go and do not need to consider "harsher realities". After a while, you may round-trip and find yourself. http://chinaheritagenewsletter.anu.edu.au/tien-hsia.php?searchterm=030_ryckmans.inc&issue=030 http://chinaheritagenewsletter.anu.edu.au/tien-hsia.php?sear...
    - mercer 13y ago
      I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what point you are making. For some people traveling is not hard. For some people traveling is hard. But even for those traveling might be well worth the difficulties. Many good things are hard. Now, personally I would argue people who say traveling isn't hard are wrong. I've traveled a lot, lived in a few quite different countries, and much as it's incredibly natural to me, it's often proven to be hard, much harder than staying in one place, in the culture most common to me...

gbog 13y ago

You love traveling but it is very stressful? Please tidy up your position. Obviously travel it not advised for those afraid of massive differences, and attached to homey comfort.

JimboOmega 13y ago
I said can be, not is very stressful. It's like our collective interest, startups: they can be very stressful, but also very rewarding. But there is still the matter of properly appreciating the risk, and really understanding what you're getting into, and protecting your fundamental physical security. There's a difference between committing to long hours of hard work with possibly no reward, and plunging yourself into debt by financing your business with credit cards. So it is with travel. It's easy to delude yourself into thinking that it'll all be fine if you just work hard and have an open mind. I think people tend to vastly underestimate the stresses of travel (Especially past college age). Of course, people coming to the US often have one of the hardest times (thanks, immigration system!), but there are just all sort of pitfalls that you'd never worry about on a week or two vacation - work visas being just the beginning. In other words, if you do it from a naive approach - without having considered some of the harsher realities of travel - you're going to have a bad time.
- gbog 13y ago
  > It's easy to delude yourself into thinking that it'll all be fine if you just work hard and have an open mind. Work hard? For travel? You mean work hard to learn foreign language etc.? For me that's not hard. There is nothing hard to work on when travelling. If getting interested in other culture and open minded to differences is something one needs to "work hard on", then it is much better to just not do it. And it is OK. It is OK not to like travelling around the world. For young people it may be uncool, but uncoolness is much preferable to self delusion. It is ok to prefer home's bed, and to be not able to take a shit on a squatty, it is ok to stay home. But if you travel, basic curiosity and interest in the others is largely enough. Then you just go and do not need to consider "harsher realities". After a while, you may round-trip and find yourself. http://chinaheritagenewsletter.anu.edu.au/tien-hsia.php?searchterm=030_ryckmans.inc&issue=030 http://chinaheritagenewsletter.anu.edu.au/tien-hsia.php?sear...
  - mercer 13y ago
    I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what point you are making. For some people traveling is not hard. For some people traveling is hard. But even for those traveling might be well worth the difficulties. Many good things are hard. Now, personally I would argue people who say traveling isn't hard are wrong. I've traveled a lot, lived in a few quite different countries, and much as it's incredibly natural to me, it's often proven to be hard, much harder than staying in one place, in the culture most common to me...