With the abundance of beautiful travel snaps perfectly cropped and filtered to perfection on all of your friend's Instagram's, and the constant tales of wonderful and exotic places visited, it's hard not to think of travel as something magical, super-dooper and oh-so-all-the-time-Insta-worthy. But the problem with is that these images and tales of perfection can create sometimes damaging expectations - especially when heading off on your first adventure.
So I'm here to set the truth straight. Travelling (at times) absolutely sucks. Here are several of the not-so-glam parts of travelling that us travel bloggers generally *forgot* to mention while we're snapping that last photo of our Starbucks as we *relaxingly* wait to board our *totally on time* plane.
1. Airports.
First up is the mad dash to the airport, with the fear of having left something behind, to ensure that you don't miss check-in/boarding/departure for your flight. Next up is having arrived in plenty of time only to find out that your check-in/boarding/departure has been delayed. Then, once checked-in, comes the 'airport ritual'. This consists of trying to avoid buying overpriced airport coffees (and failing miserably), reading the same page of your novel five times before realising it just isn't going to happen and walking the length of the terminal about thirteen hundred times before realising there is nothing exciting to see. The fun of this 'airport ritual' increases exponentially depending on how sleep deprived you are.
2. Flying
Unless you're travelling first class or in your own private jet, flying is never going to be glamourous. I don't even think I need to explain what I mean by this - whether it's the fact that seats in economy class keep shrinking the longer you've been in the air, or the dread of trying to freshen up in the teeny, tiny bathrooms. Let's just face it - you'll never get off a long-haul flight looking anything more than a sleep-deprived zombie.
2. Accommodation
Trust me, for every blogged-about beautiful hotel or hostel we bloggers have stayed in, there an equally disgusting/horrible/not even going to mention room in which we've also done our time. I've even had trouble with some of the fancier hotels I've had the *pleasure* to stay in - so trust me, cost isn't always an indicator of quality.
3. Sickness and general "I feel gross/like death/like I want a hug from my mum"
The grim reality of being unwell is magnified when travelling abroad, particularly in a non-Western country or one in which you have almost no grasp of the tongue. Sometimes even the simplest health-related issues - I once had a horrible reaction of a mosquito bite while in France (cue red, golf ball sized, itchy, oozing sore) - become hard to deal with when you're travelling as you might not have access to your go-to remedies, or be able to explain to those around you what exactly you need.
4. Homesickness
I can't name the amount of people who have told me that they aren't fit for travel because they sometimes feel homesick while abroad. This is totally normal! No matter how much you're loving life in 'insert amazing place here', it's human nature to sometimes miss the familiar.
So while there isn't much of a way to remedy these unglamorous aspects of travel, accepting that they're part and parcel of the experience will help you get through when they do occur. And trust me - all of these things are completely outweighed by all of the super amazing experiences you'll also have!
So I'm here to set the truth straight. Travelling (at times) absolutely sucks. Here are several of the not-so-glam parts of travelling that us travel bloggers generally *forgot* to mention while we're snapping that last photo of our Starbucks as we *relaxingly* wait to board our *totally on time* plane.
1. Airports.
First up is the mad dash to the airport, with the fear of having left something behind, to ensure that you don't miss check-in/boarding/departure for your flight. Next up is having arrived in plenty of time only to find out that your check-in/boarding/departure has been delayed. Then, once checked-in, comes the 'airport ritual'. This consists of trying to avoid buying overpriced airport coffees (and failing miserably), reading the same page of your novel five times before realising it just isn't going to happen and walking the length of the terminal about thirteen hundred times before realising there is nothing exciting to see. The fun of this 'airport ritual' increases exponentially depending on how sleep deprived you are.
2. Flying
Unless you're travelling first class or in your own private jet, flying is never going to be glamourous. I don't even think I need to explain what I mean by this - whether it's the fact that seats in economy class keep shrinking the longer you've been in the air, or the dread of trying to freshen up in the teeny, tiny bathrooms. Let's just face it - you'll never get off a long-haul flight looking anything more than a sleep-deprived zombie.
2. Accommodation
Trust me, for every blogged-about beautiful hotel or hostel we bloggers have stayed in, there an equally disgusting/horrible/not even going to mention room in which we've also done our time. I've even had trouble with some of the fancier hotels I've had the *pleasure* to stay in - so trust me, cost isn't always an indicator of quality.
3. Sickness and general "I feel gross/like death/like I want a hug from my mum"
The grim reality of being unwell is magnified when travelling abroad, particularly in a non-Western country or one in which you have almost no grasp of the tongue. Sometimes even the simplest health-related issues - I once had a horrible reaction of a mosquito bite while in France (cue red, golf ball sized, itchy, oozing sore) - become hard to deal with when you're travelling as you might not have access to your go-to remedies, or be able to explain to those around you what exactly you need.
4. Homesickness
I can't name the amount of people who have told me that they aren't fit for travel because they sometimes feel homesick while abroad. This is totally normal! No matter how much you're loving life in 'insert amazing place here', it's human nature to sometimes miss the familiar.
So while there isn't much of a way to remedy these unglamorous aspects of travel, accepting that they're part and parcel of the experience will help you get through when they do occur. And trust me - all of these things are completely outweighed by all of the super amazing experiences you'll also have!