Abduljabbar Ali There are times you won’t feel like traveling at all without even understanding what is going on with you.
You feel like you are stuck, the flights no longer excite you and the movement from one place to another doesn’t feel like something you want to do.
Maybe you know why you don’t want to travel or maybe you know why but you can’t change how you feel about travel nowadays.
Initially, you were so happy and could spend months moving from country to country, city to city, and village to village just exploring the beautiful landscapes and meeting incredible people.
You were so motivated to travel. Nothing ever exhausted you back then but now the idea of traveling doesn’t seem to be something you want to involve yourself in.
You can’t just stop traveling because this is the lifestyle you have been working on for years.
You have sacrificed so much to just let it go to waste.
What can you do to revive your adventure spirit?
Should you just listen to your body and mind and follow it?
In this article, I will share some tips that will help you get back on your feet and start traveling and enjoy it just like you used to.
Trust me, I know the feeling because I experienced it. The tips I will share with you helped me to start traveling again when I felt like I didn’t want to do it anymore.
What to do when you don’t feel like traveling anymore;
1. Take a step back and relax for about half a year.
If you don’t feel like traveling anymore this is the first thing you have to do; take a break from it.
You feel this way because your body and mind are just exhausted you may have been pushing yourself so hard.
If you have been traveling frequently and fast from country to country, this shows that you are travel burnt.
You are burnt out because you pushed yourself too hard. Your body and mind can no longer withstand it.
What you should know is that too much of something is poison. It doesn’t matter whether it makes you happy or helps you grow, if you go beyond the limits, it will turn on you.
Just like working out, it helps you build your body but if you do it too much it will end up breaking it.
If you don’t feel like even getting on a bus to move from one county to another, after traveling for so long, this shows that you are just exhausted.
The only thing you can do now is just to take a break from traveling to let your body and mind recharge.
Depending on the intensity of how you feel about going on trips, set a break for a period that you know will help you get back on your feet.
If you feel it’s too much for you to the extent that you don’t want even to look at your passport and think of your previous trips, just take a break of half a year.
You can go back to your hometown and recharge. Stay at home and keep yourself busy with something else other than traveling.
Read also; Traveling Is Exhausting (7 Ways To Deal With It)
2. Find something else to start working on while you are on this break.
If you did not want to travel mainly because you were burnt out, after a considerable period you will want to start traveling again.
Your body and mind won’t allow you to stay in your hometown anymore. You will crave the pleasure of exploration.
But if it was not about you being burnt out from traveling, what you feel right now won’t change.
Even after one year, you will still feel that you don’t want to get into any flight at all.
Anyway, you don’t have to take a break of half a year before you get back into your travels.
If you have been relaxing and you end up craving to travel again even after 3 months, you should book your flight and start traveling again.
Don’t push yourself to travel if you don’t feel like doing it. You will only keep making it worse.
Take a break and observe how you will feel about exploring after that.
3. Set your priorities right first.
Another thing you should do when you don’t feel like traveling at all, if time off doesn’t work for you; you need to set your priorities straight.
You should understand that our priorities change as we grow and when we come across different and huge life changes.
The way you felt about traveling five years ago may not be the same way you feel about it now.
Sometimes we tend to assume that our priorities, preferences, and passions will never change no matter what happens.
Even when things aren’t working the way we expected, our energy towards what we are working on changes and we feel like stopping, we usually convince ourselves that it’s just a bad wind passing by.
We don’t want to accept that what we loved doing a few years ago might turn out to be something we don’t even want to think about.
If you have taken your time to relax and took a break from traveling but you feel nothing changed, it may be that your priorities changed.
Sit down and start evaluating your priorities and what you want right now and not what you wanted five years ago.
Maybe you used to enjoy exploring new countries when you were solo, but after meeting someone, all you want to do is settle down with them and start a life.
Your body and mind just push you to prioritize something else because a huge change has happened in your life.
Traveling was fun and exciting when you didn’t have kids. Now it doesn’t feel the same due to this big life change.
Don’t ignore what you feel about exploring.
Ask yourself about what you want and process if flying from one country to another is on this list.
How do you feel about traveling?
Do you find the thought of exploring an exciting one?
What do you feel like doing now that traveling is not in your options?
Is your partner pushing you to pick something else other than exploring new countries?
What do you want to do with your life?
The above are questions you should ask yourself for you to evaluate your priorities.
When you know what you want to prioritize, it will give you an idea of whether you should travel or not.
If you deep down feel that you want to do something else other than traveling, get into it.
You will have to let go of it because you no longer feel like doing it.
Sometimes priorities change, you have to accept that and not push yourself into something you don’t want to do.
You won’t be happy when you choose to do something that you don’t feel like doing.
But if you sit down and realize that you still want to travel but something else is the cause of what you are feeling, think of a way you can get rid of that feeling.
You won’t be able to fix what you are feeling right now about your trips around the world if you don’t know what’s the cause of it.
4. Find out why traveling doesn’t excite you anymore.
You have realized you don’t feel like traveling anymore, do you know what makes you feel this way?
It will be hard for you to change this feeling if you have no idea why you are no longer excited to travel.
When you know the cause of what you feel, you will have an idea of how to change it.
So, how can you know why you no longer feel like traveling at all?
The first thing you should do is just think of your last trips.
What happened on those trips?
What were the experiences of the last trips you did?
Take your time to revisit your last trips if you want to know why you don’t feel like traveling anymore.
If something happened on the last trip that just turned off your adventurous spirit, you will know about it.
Maybe you had a bad experience when you were traveling solo in Cartagena, this traumatized you and turned on your protective mechanism.
Read also; Why Traveling Solo Is A Good Idea [11 Reasons]
You don’t feel like traveling again because of what you went through. Deep down you feel like the same thing is going to happen again if you visit another city.
Since your subconscious just wants to protect itself the adventure vibes are just switched off and that is why you don’t feel like traveling anymore.
If you went through a horrible experience on your last travels, this could be the reason why you don’t feel like traveling anymore.
The only way to unlock your adventure spirit is to work on the cause that brought about what you are feeling about your travels.
This takes me to the next section of this article.
5. Work on any issues that are holding you back from traveling.
Now that you have an idea why you feel this way about your travels, it’s time to work on it.
If you don’t aren’t able to travel because of what happened on your last trip, figure out how you can work on that.
Other issues will force you to find a third party help to work on how you are feeling about traveling if it’s too intense.
Some issues will require you to change your mindset when it comes to traveling.
If you don’t want to book a flight and fly away to another country because you are just afraid to get yourself into the same situations you were in last time, shift your mindset.
Start looking at your trips with a positive outlook. Assure yourself that nothing like what happened last time will occur again.
Affirm to yourself that you will be safe and that what happened on your last trip was just a simple challenge to help you learn and grow.
Maybe you were traveling with your partner, and he or she ended up ditching you for someone else.
This makes you feel that traveling is not something you want to do because it will only reopen your wounds.
To work on this issue, you will have to figure out a way to start traveling solo and make the best out of your trips.
Read also; How To Travel Alone But Not Feel Lonely
Don’t let what happened to you hold you back from doing what you love the most.
Find ways to work on the issues that hold you back from exploring the world.
Once everything is solved, you will want to travel the world like you used to do.
6. Slowly enroll yourself in small trips and observe how it feels.
Before you start traveling the world again after you have worked on the issues that were holding you back from your trips; start small and observe how you will feel about it.
If you have been working to awaken your spirit adventure, you need to taste it.
You have to find out if what you feel after the long break off the flights and working on the problems that were holding you back has changed how you feel about traveling.
Enroll yourself in short trips to see if the traveling vibe has been awakened.
When you start traveling after a while and it feels like you love and enjoy it, this shows that you have worked out your issues.
Keep on traveling around and observe yourself and your feelings on how it feels to be out exploring again.
If it feels like the first time you started traveling, you should keep going.
You have solved your problem. Enjoy your trips around the world again.
What if after you have tried everything I have shared above, but still you feel the same way about traveling?
If you have done everything right and still feel like going abroad is not something you want to do, it’s a sign traveling is off your system.
You will have no choice but to focus on something else that makes you happy.
You should do what makes you happy.
Don’t hold on to something that you don’t feel like doing no matter how much it means to you.
It can be that you wanted to travel the world for so long. You thought that it was something that would make you feel fulfilled.
After working so hard on this dream, you finally managed to reach it.
The first few months when you started traveling they were exciting, but it no longer feels the same.
You don’t feel like traveling, all you want to do is just relax and enjoy your life.
If this is what makes you happy you should let go of traveling.
You wanted to travel because you thought it was going to give you a purpose in life, but that’s not the case.
Make peace with it and find something else that will make you happy.
You can’t force your heart to love something that doesn’t align with what you feel.
If your body and mind don’t feel like traveling anymore, find something else to do that will make you happy.
Forcing yourself to travel when you don’t want to will just make your life harder.
You will waste a lot of money, and time and drain yourself. This will never make you happy.
If you used to find happiness from exploring the world and nowadays that’s not the source of it, let it go.
Focus on something else that will lighten up your life and make you feel motivated to do it.
Lastly…
If you don’t feel like traveling anymore take a break and observe how your body and mind will feel about it a few months later.
When you have had enough break from traveling and you feel like you are okay to start exploring, hit the road again.
It’s probably true that you were burnt out and you needed a little rest from the chaos of the streets and cities.
On the other hand, if you don’t feel like traveling because you prefer doing something else, this means that your priorities changed.
Traveling is no longer something that is at the top of your to-do list. This can be brought about by the recent life changes.
You no longer feel like exploring because it’s not something you want to do. Your mind and body want you to focus on something else.
It’s normal for priorities in life to change. The things you enjoyed doing 2 years ago won’t be the same things you want to do today.
What I can advise you to do is just to focus on what makes you happy.
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