How do you know when it’s time for another lap around a fresh continent or a second backpacking extravaganza?
Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether you are truly itching for a second long-term trip.
Here are some signs that you have fallen under travel’s spell again:
- Your “First Time” travel guidebooks have magically found their way onto your desk.
- Maps are splayed out across your desk with countries whimsically circled in pink highlighter.
- Who set up that auto-draft payment into your travel account? Yep, that’s right– your subconscious travel girl did.
- The lease is running low. And you totally do not care.
- The Craigslist “rent” tab is colored purple…for Mexico.
- Your current surroundings make you feel a little too comfortable, and a little bit stagnant. Routines, which used to give you comfort, now make you feel bored.
- Something inside of you is yearning to see a different horizon—that gut feeling you had on the first go-around is surfacing again.
- Seeing National Geographic Traveler on the grocery store checkout rack gets you in your feels and on the verge of tears.
- Memories of your previous travels are stronger than normal; you see yellow school buses and wish they were chicken buses—painted wild colors, and blaring Latin pop music.
- You try to satisfy your urge to travel with smaller hops and jaunts—a weekend trip here, a short visit to a friend in the city—but it’s just not enough.
Extreme signs you gotta hit the road again:
- You have already pretend-packed a bag, just in case.
- You have cleaned out your closet, brought things to Goodwill, and (oddly enough) rented a storage unit…
- You’ve researched the visa requirements in your top five countries of interest during idle moments at work.
You are in denial, girlfriend! And it’s okay that the wanderlust bug bit you and refuses to let go. Even if you are no longer twenty years old and on your first trip, don’t deny to yourself that you want to travel! Experience the symptoms, and realize the cure for the crash is the drug itself. Commit to yourself, and travel this world. Be brave and know that it is okay to take another trip. Actually, it’s more than okay—it’s your right and duty to live a magical, travel life.
Go baby girl, go!