Wanderlust: Are You Smitten?

The definition of Wanderlust: “A strong desire to travel“*. Does this sound familiar? Do you spend more time looking for flights than doing your job? Do you feel inspired to go places whenever you open a book or watch a film? Does the idea of .. feel appealing? Would you gladly spend your whole salary and more on just traveling?

If you answered yes to these questions, then you are probably suffering from wanderlust. Let me be honest, I am very much jealous of people who travel for a living (even though I consider myself a reluctant traveller). People who travel, write about their experience and have the opportunity to have this lifestyle. Some people have that chance, and then there is the rest of us. In our case, we both have normal day jobs. We happily spend our time in the office from 8 to 5 and count the days to the next holiday. Our salaries are OK. We get by and we can save some. We have a normal amount of paid days off (in Sweden that is five weeks/year). We don’t really have the opportunity to work from anywhere else than the office and we rarely travel for work. That is our normal life, and my guess is that this is what life looks like to a lot of people like us. However, we do manage to squeeze in some traveling once in a while. (With all that wanderlust we would go insane otherwise). Friends and family often ask us how it’s possible. Now, here are our tips to appease the wanderlust before it totally consumes you. Wanderlust for dummies you can call it.

• You don’t always have to travel far. You can go the neighboring village and find an adventure there. Sometimes you can even explore your own town. Being curious and doing thing will probably calm your wanderlust at least a little bit. For instance, we have traveled to some cities in Sweden, but the Baltic states, Poland, and Finland are also a favorite. They are not far, nor expensive. And they are perfect for a weekend trip. There are 52 weekends in a year, so plenty of time for little getaways.
• Be flexible. People have a tendency to associate traveling with certain things, such as sunshine or the beach. However, there is more than that to travel. Try to skip some of your usual requirements from the equation, and you might find a lot of new and interesting destinations.
• One long trip or many shorter ones? A trip does not have to be for a week, or two weeks. Just remember this when planning – you don’t have to go to Spain for three weeks.
• What’s your attitude? I know some people who claim that they’d like to travel more but they have no time. Is it really so? We don’t have kids so we don’t need to think about that, but it seems to me that many people use their children as an excuse for not traveling. But, there are people who prove the opposite by traveling extensively with their offspring. Now, everyone has their own situation to consider. I’m just saying that if you really want it, you can probably find a way.

Please consider that we are aware of the fact that people have different situations in life and that some people might have a variety of issues that affect their ability to travel. I’m not saying that everyone should want to travel, wanting to stay home is more than fine. This post was written with those people in mind, who find themselves in situations like ours (socially and financially), but whose comments go along the lines of “Oh, I wish that I could travel too, but…” 

Do you have any good tips or thoughts on the topic?

Happy Travels! 

*The definition of wanderlust can be found here