Travel Difficulties, What is hard?

A friend of mine recently asked me to write a post on what has been hard. I know that this friend has traveled before (both alone and with me) so she knows some of the challenges I personally face. But I thought this would be a good opportunity to reflect for myself, and ask some other folks what they have been facing.

The chats were short, some people went into more detail than others.

My notes were in the following format:

Demographics

Difficulties

Trip type

However for the sake of readability I will try to mix it up a bit.
I should also note this is definitely one of those questions that you receive different answers depending on how you ask the question. I asked them to share personally what had been difficult, but I think the majority of the answers are about normal travel precautions/stresses rather than psychological/emotional hardships. 

A Swiss woman in her mid twenties was half way through a 1 year around the world trip. She said that one of the unexpected challenges she had been facing in South America was unhelpful or unlnowledgeable hostel staff. Often she found it difficult to get good information about basic essentials such as bus information or tours. Due to the fact that she was hopping from continent to continent she hadn't spent much time learning Spanish, and found this to be a second major hardship outside of major cities. Lastly she spoke about the difficulty she had found in meeting other travelers. Day tours and budget hotels were full of locals who didn't necessarily want to become friends. She said she had days at a time when she was alone.

"Idiot travel partners" said one British man in his early 20s.  They are in Peru as volunteers and travel on the weekends. This guy said that his "friends" were ignorant and couldn't take care of themselves, which meant he had to look out for them. His second biggest difficulty had been unclean/poorly managed hostels.  He said it was insane how little effort workers put into making their hostel  sanitary: they don't change the sheets, they don't change the toilet bins (where you put used toilet paper), they don't keep track of who is in which room or what is available.

A French couple who had been traveling together for one month (the woman is on a 6 month South America trip, the man just a month in Peru) both in their early 20s spoke about language barriers being a significant challenge. The man said simple things like talking to taxi drivers etc become a real challenge. He also said that is was really frustrating to be confined to tourist destinations because you couldn't communicate outside of them. The woman said in traveling alone one of the biggest challenges was always having to be aware. You can't rely on someone else to know the directions or speak for you... You also have to be even more cautious for your safety.

An America woman in her early 20s echoed this frustration. She said she had been mugged at one point in her trip and it made her even more paranoid (temporarily). She spoke of the difficulty of having to always be on guard, but also the struggle to avoid being paranoid and fearful. She gave the following advice: don't be overly scared but listen to the travel precautions, ask hostel staff/locals where it is safe to walk, take taxis with other tourists, call taxi services, hide money and cards in different places so you aren't SOL if something does happen. She said of her 4 months traveling solo, that it was easy enough to meet people and ask for company to make you feel safer.

An America man in his mid 40s said that his biggest challenge had been not knowing Spanish. He said this was a personal barrier, not a travel issue, but had been in the area on 4 separate trips and never really had any major issues. He said his partner (currently in Cuzco) had spoken of feeling unsafe, and worried about being followed. He was leading tour groups on mountaineering trips. 

So those were 6 perspectives. Many other people said they would have to think about it and didn't get back to me. Perhaps I will continue asking throughout the trip.

Part of the reason I wanted to ask other people about this is that I don't know that my travel hardships are the same as others. I think especially the male/female difference is huge as far as safety and comfort. I have met men and women who have been mugged/assaulted, but in general it is a lot different for male travelers who tend to take a lot more risks and sometimes invite violence(bar fights?) most female travelers I have met have been cautious and still had issues. 

Personally:

When I think of the day to day difficulties they come in a few categories.

Mike's normal anxieties (food, sanitation)

Mike's emotional state (confidence, sociability, isolation, worries, risk taking)

Travel stresses (safety, money, ignorance, time, control)

So what's hard?

Having a limited diet is hard, this is an issue for me anywhere but recently I got sick eating one of my staples so my meals are a little more limited until my stomach feels more fully recovered. In smaller towns in Peru there are basically 4 options for lunch and dinner: ceviche, Chifa(Chinese food), Italian and the meat/fries/rice combo. As a tourist you are supposed to avoid anything that may have been washed with unclean water or have bugs/parasites... So things like salad and apples and grapes are small risks that won't necessarily cause you harm but could.  Ice in your drink? No thanks. But how do you know if your glass was cleaned properly? How do you know if the chicken or fish was handled and prepared in a healthy way? You don't. A small anxiety every time you eat. Everyone gets sick at some point, the real question is when? 

I have been feeling a little sick on and off for a week... But it hasn't kept me from doing anything I wanted to do.

On the sanitation issue, I have a hard time when there is no soap in bathrooms. It's hard enough that you have to bring your own tp and stick it in an overflowing bin... But no soap afterwards?  Yuckers. I stopped using antibacterial goos at home but it is absolutely necessary while traveling. 

For me the hardest part of travel is dealing with my own emotional state. I choose to make this a positive experience, but there are times when you just don't like something... When your sugar level is too low. When you haven't had a decent cup of coffee in a week and you have a caffeine headache that just won't quit... Or the altitude or the heat has made you lethargic(heat is hard for me especially near the beach). It's a battle to keep positive, but staying positive doesn't mean ignoring negative feelings, it means processing them and recognizing where they come from.

The area this affects me the most is in the ever whirling swirl of sociability.  When I first started traveling I didn't feel confident enough to talk to people, I felt very Minnesotan (don't interrupt, don't mooch, don't get in another persons way).  I feel less of that now, but I sometimes have a hard time relating to the goals and expectations other people have. I spent a few days in a beach town(Huanchaco) and found handfuls of backpackers who hadn't done anything with their time there. Hadn't learned Spanish, hadn't been to the tourist spots, hadn't met any locals, hadn't volunteered, hadn't even learned to surf!  I was shocked when people told me they'd been sitting around for a week basically competing with each other at who could do nothing the best. I had an easy time joking and laughing with these folks, but a harder time relating on a more meaningful level. 

This group is very similar to the drinking and druggie party groups that go from location to location living the night life and not much else.

And on that note... Not drinking, the preferred social lubricant of most of the world, does seem to be a challenge for me. The hard part is that I don't really care, I have no interest in staying up all night drinking with people who can't have a conversation with me sober. 

In a slightly different way, I meet a ton of backpackers who are in south America to trek. To take long hikes though the mountains or the jungles. Who probably see the most beautiful natural wonders, but who lack even a basic knowledge of anything outside the national parks. Name dropping the 3000 year old ruin that gave the name to the culture of this area means nothing to them. 

In order to challenge myself to recognize the positives of this group, I have been doing some day hikes that were really enjoyable and totally worthwhile (like Laguna 69 or Mindo). But I don't really have any interest in weeklong hiking... And there doesn't seem to be much conversation to share about the hikes.  Was it a good hike? Yeah beautiful, exhausting, the weather was _____, you should do it!   I am glad to have gotten a little out of my comfort zone in this way. I don't normally think of myself as an athletic person, but hiking in the mountains is definitely not a spectator  sport. I also have enjoyed the time to think/pray in the hours of step after step. 

But like the Swiss woman said, traveling alone can be quite lonely. I have had days at a time in which I didn't meet anyone who spoke English. I've had really rewarding mixed Spanish/English conversations but I've also run into a lot of folks who shrug and walk away. Sometimes communication doesn't seem worth the attempt, other times it leads to the best experiences. Hard to know which it will be.  The most frustrating issue for me in all my travels has always been the shallow small talk aspect that seems inevitable. You are meeting new people, so either you or they are likely to be a little cautious in what is revealed. So conversations almost always take the same line of questioning... People joke about it but it's hard to escape. 

Where are you from? Where have you been? What have you done? Where are you going?How long is your trip?

What do you do at home? 

Oh and what was your name again?(if they are being polite or have decided you are ok to keep chatting with)

Asking questions outside of these leads to curious looks, some people love it and some HATE it(an unwelcome invasion of privacy).  

When I am in a good mood I have no problem with the small chat or the real questions... But when I am feeling introverted - it's hard to want to care about someone you will probably not see again.

The other mental area that bothers me regularly is the idea of not being productive. I go through this at home as well and have taken a similar tactic while traveling to feel positive. I don't have a job, so my job is to learn, observe, talk to people. My job is to try new things(if I can) and go to the places that stand out as important. My jobs is to write (keep a personal journal, write poetry and stories when I am feeling creative), to draw if I feel the muse. My job is to learn spanish, however long that takes and no matter how frustrating. My job is to report, to blog, to take pictures, to communicate in emails and Facebook messages at home. My job is to look- for opportunities.  These little tasks have given me a sense of purpose on this trip -without them I am sure that I would feel pretty lost. 

Finally travel stresses...

Part of the reason I wanted to ask others is that I had a suspicion that this was more difficult for other people than for me. I have had tons of times when I got super worried or paranoid, but these things seem normal and natural to me while traveling... Not a hardship. I have slept in places that were disgusting, been in cars and buses where I was scared, walked down streets that I shouldn't have, spent money and been concerned about money, been annoyed at hostel workers or random people that give me bad info, or frustrated that the wifi doesn't work...But this is all really easy to brush off for me. 

I have now broken my glasses twice, but in both cases found people to be really helpful. A little travel stress -having to pay for new glasses, but overall that is nothing in compared to the potential issues I could be facing. 

I get mad that I sometimes book a bus ticket before I get the best deal... No big whoop.  I have found most of the day to day tasks to be simple. Buying food, booking hostels, buses and tours, getting through border checks... It's all rather normal. The embarrassment of not knowing the language wears off in a few minutes. Smiling and normal greetings of a long way.

I think a lot of people have this idea that things should be to their expected standard, my standards and expectations  are a little more wavy.  I take control over the things I feel the need to take control over... And the rest is something to experience and find the positive in.

That being said, someone asked me the other night if I had any big stories from my trip, any dramas... And I couldn't think of anything that stood out as being especially news worthy. Either I have been having a fairly safe and risk less trip. Or I have been purposefully smoothing out the edges... I am not sure how I feel about that.

Overall though I would say my life traveling is easier and more stress free than the life I had at home. I think this is good for me, but to me it means I probably haven't committed to much outside of myself.  I think this is a really important thing to think about. The hard stuff isn't bad always bad stuff, I hope that soon I find my trip more challenging in a positive way(like a job).