I’ve been lucky enough to do quite a bit of traveling at a young age. I have very vivid memories from when I was young of mountain retreats, Disneyland trips, and seeing the ocean for the first time.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to see some of the greatest cities in North America, not to mention that l have laid on some amazing white sand beaches in its southern counterpart. However, all I have been hearing and reading lately is how as a twenty-something I should be traveling as much as I can.
I’ve spent lots of time reading countless articles about how you must travel when you are young and how this is the time to put your career aside and see the world before life really begins.I am not unaware of the benefits of traveling in your twenties. It seems natural to travel at a young age: we don’t have as many responsibilities (no house, no kids), and we are able to take full advantage of what a country can throw at us by staying in hostels, slumming it with locals, or traveling by night train just to name a few things. With all that said, I can understand the wanderlust that most people my age feel.
Here is where my unpopular opinion comes out: I don’t feel the same as many twenty-somethings, and I don’t want to travel right now.
I can’t quite pinpoint when I started to feel this way, but as my friends were booking plane tickets across the world, I was equally as excited to plan my summer around being close to home.
It wasn’t always like this, though. When I was young, I always dreamed of traveling when I was older. I imagined how my future kids would be out of the house, and my husband and I could see countries we’ve never seen while being established enough to go for an extended period of time. Is that such a crazy mentality to have? It seems like it is with the overwhelming amount of traveling stories I’ve heard lately.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love seeing different places and exploring new countries. My fiancé and I are always going on weekend trips to the mountains or hiking in our backyard, plus bonding with girlfriends over snowboarding trips and mini trips to the lake. But those trips on their own fill my heart and satisfy my wanderlust enough that the urge to go anywhere else just isn’t there.
I always look forward to seeing other friends photos from their trips and hearing all of their stories. I am lucky to have people in my life who are following their dreams and are able to go where they want to go, that is what life is all about after all.
That is why I am very content with what I’m doing with my life right now. I’m extremely happy at my job, with my hobbies, my friends, and with what I chose to do on the weekends. Traveling is certainly something I want to do in the future and I can’t wait to explore this gorgeous world of ours. But at the end of the day, I’m a content twenty-something and I’m happy exploring my own quiet little corner of the world.
What to do you think about the travel bug that most twenty-somethings seem to have? Do you share the same unpopular opinion?
Why or why not?
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About the Author
Keenyn graduated from NAIT Business School where she majored in Marketing and Advertising. She enjoys sports, photography, and writing. She hopes to make a positive impact in a company through her expertise and ethics.
Website: Keensider.blogspot.ca