Becky (UK)
Living in London is super expensive, and I always felt, if I could just earn more, my life would be better. My approach to work was to do as much as I had to do to make the most money. My happiness was dependent on a goal that kept moving further away.
As soon as I lived anywhere else, I realized I could have a much better quality of life, more fun, for way less money. So now I do just enough work to make the money I need, and focus more on experiences and how I want to spend my time and my life.
I left the UK planning on a four-month trip through Central America, but I got to Guatemala two weeks in and felt like I couldn’t leave. I stayed there and started working online, my friends would joke that you can’t call what I do as “travel” since I did not move around much. Working from Guatemala gave me the income and time to decide where I wanted to be.
Since 2017, I’ve spent 18 months in Central America, six months in East and Southern Africa, three months in Indonesia, and currently I’m in Spain.
When I started I travelling as a backpacker it was with friends, and eventually they continued without me, leaving me to backpack solo. I loved it, it made me much more open to new people, and to saying ‘yes’ to new adventure. Some of my most memorable travel experiences only happened because of the people I met a few days before - like climbing Kilimanjaro, going to an awesome music festival in Uganda, going on safari in the Masai Mara and spending three days on a train to Victoria Falls.
I cherish the people and the friendships you make traveling as a backpacker. I love my friends in the UK, but I connect to my travel friends in a different way. My travel friends are way more diverse in terms of age, nationality, etc. but we have more in common at a fundamental level.
So don’t wait until you have money you think you need, or the people to go with. They can be things you pick up on the way, as well as language skills and where to go once you get there. That is the spirit of backpacking. You can’t get back the time you waited to go, just go for it. .
My name is Becky ,and I am from London. I’m a freelance writer and have been traveling for the past three years.
Follow Becky’s Travel on IG HERE
Gear I Cant Travel Without
