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I’ve decided to lead my life with a travel mindset, but what exactly does that mean? Can you have a travel mindset without actually traveling? Of course you can! A travel mindset is the desire to explore and the curiosity of what there is in this massive world. You can have a travel mindset just in your own hometown. You can be curious and look for new things. It doesn’t even have to be new things; it can be a new perspective on an old thing. This type of mindset makes it so that there is something new and exciting every step of the way. It requires you to ask questions and dig a little deeper. This is how I choose to lead my life, because it doesn’t leave any room for boredom. Instead, it let’s me lead a riveting adventure of a life.
How can you develop a travel mindset? Developing a travel mindset can take some time, but it is all about how you see the world. Here are the five steps that I use to develop and embrace my travel mindset.
1. Ask questions
Question everything around you. Even if you think that you know everything that there is to know about a thing or place, keep asking questions. Dig a little deeper, and learn whatever else there is to learn. I have lived in a small town in California for the majority of my life. I still don’t know everything about these small towns and could spend a lot more time exploring. If I haven’t thoroughly explored these small towns, imagine how much more I have to explore throughout California. The possibilities are endless. Think about your surrounding locations, and ask yourself what you have not yet explored.
2. Appreciate the world around you
Again, I am going to go back to the fact that I lived in small towns the majority of my life. When I was living in these small towns, my main focus was how much I wanted to get out. If you grew up in a small town, this thought may resonate with you. I wanted to leave to go find something bigger and better. Sometimes, it takes leaving that town to appreciate what it was. Now, when I go back to visit my parents, I see it from a completely different perspective. It is a very cute, unique town. It even resembles towns that I would go out of my way to seek out when traveling in other destinations abroad. Yet, I didn’t appreciate it in that way when I lived there. I fixated myself on thoughts of how to get out. Appreciating what is around you is an integral step to having a travel mindset.
3. Live in the moment
It is so important to focus on living in the moment. The majority of people tend to either live in the past or in the future. I often lean more towards living in the future. I do have a lot to look forward to in life, but that doesn’t give me an excuse to always hope that time passes quickly. Sometimes, I need to be conscious of it and snap myself out of it. Time is precious. To say “I can’t wait for this to happen” gives the inclination that you want time to move even faster than it already does, which is crazy! In reality, we CAN wait, and we should enjoy the current moment without wanting time to rush by.
It is something that I need to remind myself, and it proves to be a continuous challenge. For example, my boyfriend and I planned to leave in January 2021 to travel full-time. Then COVID hit. Of course, traveling is the least of our concerns right now. However, I had been saying since the beginning of the year that I can’t wait for the end of 2020 so that we can leave to travel next year. (Now, I’m saying I can’t wait until the end of 2020 for another reason, but that’s besides the point). Our travel plans got postponed, so everything that I was looking forward to changed. Looking back, I would have rather spent my time enjoying the present moment rather than hoping for time to skip forward to when I could travel. Living in the future even led my travel mindset to fade for a while. I stopped exploring the unique places that are right in my backyard in the beautiful state of California. Don’t let the present moment out of sight; the past is gone, and the future can wait!
4. Embrace the mind over matter mentality
Embrace the mind over matter mentality. People can perceive mind over matter in different ways. In this case, I perceive it as your mindset being strong enough to overcome any external forces, barriers, or obstacles. I hold this of the utmost importance, because when you decide to travel or live with the travel mindset, you are bound to encounter obstacles. These can include judgment from people, financial challenges, or societal expectations to live a conventional life.
I’m 23 years old when writing this post, and it’s expected of me to currently think about starting a career, settling down, and getting married. I’ve been with my boyfriend for six years now, and we don’t have plans to get married or buy a house any time soon. That may not be conventional, but life doesn’t need to be that way. That is what the travel mindset is all about. You don’t need to listen to what society has to say. I can’t count the amount of times that people told me that I’m crazy for wanting to travel long-term. They judged me for “giving up” the life that I established since I graduated university. The reality of it is that I’m not giving up anything, I am going and finding something different. It is something different from what other people think is normal or okay, but it’s what I find value in. Figure out what you value, and embrace that mind over matter mentality. It’s critical to having a travel mindset and living your life the way you want to live.
5. Say “f*ck it”
Say f*ck it sometimes. The travel mindset means grabbing life by the horns, and running with it, letting it take you where it may. Sometimes, people have a hard time letting go and saying f*ck it. I don’t know what you believe, but I believe that things happen for a reason. That may be due to some external force or powerful being, or it may be your heart or mind leading you in a certain direction. Either way, life is going to take you where it may. You might as well enjoy the ride. Whenever you hit bumps in the road, say f*ck it. Or when an opportunity presents itself, say f*ck it, and do it. This may be one of the hardest parts of developing a travel mindset, but it is the only way to get to that level of living.
These five steps are all crucial to living with a travel mindset. It may take time to develop, but taking it one step at a time can make the biggest difference in how you live and perceive your own life. This type of mindset is what I can attribute to my happiness in life. The travel mindset might be what you need to not feel boxed in by societal expectations. Instead, take these five steps to lead the life that you want to live. That could mean developing the travel mindset and taking it all over the world or applying it to your daily life at home. It could be in a small town or big city or working in an office or with your family. Either way, the travel mindset will open so many doors and possibilities no matter what your current life circumstances are.
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