Traveling in Your 30s: Is it Too Late?
Is it too late to travel in your 30s? After a listener submitted this simple yet thought-provoking question into the show, we decided to dedicate an episode to it. We discuss the societal pressures faced by travellers in their 30s, as well as the risks and the downsides. If you're in your 30s or fast-approaching and you're contemplating a backpacking trip or a change of career, don't miss this one!
Help support the show and access the Lost & Found section, as Adam shares his feelings towards living away from family and friends, and Alun reviews a recent trip to the cinema.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro & Golden Week
03:19 - Adam sold his van!
10:21 - Japan plan
11:52 - Hostel Common Room: Is it too late to travel in your 30s?
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Welcome to Tripology
Alun:
[0:02] Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's one of the backpacking podcasts available to people who are interested in backpacking podcasts. I'm Alun and I'm here with the ever lustrous Adam.
Adam:
[0:16] Thank you very much everyone for joining us for another amazing week. Hope you're having a good one where you are. If you don't know anything about this podcast, we're two backpacking best mates who call each other up and try to make each other laugh. Alun, you're all the way in Tokyo. I'm still hanging around on the South Island of New Zealand. What have you got for us this week, mate?
Alun:
[0:34] I described you as lustrous this week because there's a little substance that I think of as being lustrous and that's called gold. Ah, gold. Yeah, that's right. Because here where I am in Tokyo, we're about to collide into golden week. Do you know anything about golden week?
Adam:
[0:52] The only thing I do know about Golden Week is that people who live in Tokyo and other areas of Japan say that you should absolutely avoid Golden Week if you're going to be going to Japan as a tourist.
Alun:
[1:04] Apparently it gets quite hectic in Golden Week because of all the domestic tourism. Golden Week, interestingly, isn't just one holiday. It's a collection of different public holidays that just so happen to be close together. You've got Children's Day, Greenery Day, some sort of Memorial Day, and Shower Day. They all collide in such close proximity that it makes a bunch of different days also called England. In our language, a week.
Adam:
[1:37] What on earth is greenery day?
Alun:
[1:40] I think it's a day where you celebrate greenery, Adam. But the word golden week, or phrase golden week, if you like, is just created because one movie director, he saw that his profits went sky high during these public holidays because everyone had F all to do and went to the cinema. And on account of that he was like this is ever such a golden week i.e gold in my pocket i'm getting so much money because people are watching my films.
Adam:
[2:12] Very nice do you um do you agree that tourists should avoid japan at this time have you noticed that the streets are absolutely heaving even more so than usual.
Alun:
[2:20] Golden week's not started for me yet so i will have to report on that next week as you can see i'm still very much a working man you might have noticed that i've decided to switch up smart casual and i'm dressed now in casual smart which is a different vibe but still in accordance with the rules of my employer.
Adam:
[2:40] You you look like someone who's turned up to work casual and they've said Alun we did mention in the email that it was smart casual and you've pulled a tie out your bag and go oh fucking hell then whatever.
Alun:
[2:52] Yeah i've realized you can get away with a lot if you keep a tie in your bag or indeed pocket at all times because you can really dress up an outfit at a moment's notice.
Adam:
[3:05] Yeah. If I put a tie on, is that all right? Yeah, that's fine. That's not casual, isn't it? Yeah.
Alun:
[3:11] I rolled my sleeves down, put some pants on and tied a tie. And from that on, I was acceptable.
Adam:
[3:18] I'm really glad to see you, mate, because I have got some big news.
Alun:
[3:21] Uh-oh.
Adam:
[3:22] Some quite big news, some quite large news that I haven't even told you yet.
Alun:
[3:26] Large news? Wow. Well, you should be so lucky.
Adam:
[3:30] Large news for you this week i am now no longer the owner of a vehicle what.
Alun:
[3:38] Happened mate did so either you sold it or.
Adam:
[3:41] Or what crashed it no god i've been driving for 20 years and uh i've never had an accident so touch wood there we go um i sold the vehicle mate i've sold it i've sold the van it's gone gone has gone to a new owner money is in the bank all of the stuff is sort of scattered around a number of buildings and i've got to go through that i've moved from my apartment into the back of a van and now i've got to downsize from my van into my backpack.
Alun:
[4:10] Well, you've got to. So they bought the van with you in it, did they?
Adam:
[4:15] No, no, no. I've got that would have been unaffordable. I've I've just I'm looking at all my shit on the floor here thinking imminently I'm going to be flying to Asia and I need to go through this stuff and obviously donate some of it or sell it or whatever else I can do. I'm not going to throw much of it away. There's a couple of books. Do you what you read? Do you read? Do you read over there? You've got time for reading. I've got a couple of books I can give to you.
Alun:
[4:39] I'm very, very bad at reading. Often my strategy if someone buys me a book is to thank them, download the audio book, and then listen to that while the book's sort of vaguely in the room with me, and then tell them about how I enjoyed the book. But in actual fact, their present of a book just led to me spending my own money on an audio book version.
Adam:
[5:03] Yeah, I'm sure you're not the only one who does that. Can't you just ask for audiobooks instead?
Alun:
[5:10] I don't like asking for gifts. I think it's uncouth. Please tell me how your van sale went, mate. Would you like to describe the person physically? And then maybe after that, you can describe them emotionally and interpersonally.
Adam:
[5:26] Well you mentioned emotionally i won't be describing them physically but emotionally it was quite an emotional moment for me because uh i think i'm still going through it you know when you when you live in a van for four months and you have some of the most amazing experiences you've ever had in your life in this thing a road trip uh as anyone listening to this will know but certainly you because me and you have done a few road trips ourselves uh it becomes more about you and the vehicle you're in as opposed to sort of you know what you're doing where you are which country you're in and that sort of stuff so yeah i fell in love with that van and now i'm sort of coming to terms with not having it even something as silly as like walking out of a car supermarket and seeing it in a parking space would you know give me a little i don't know a bit of a you know nice feeling a glimmer i think they're called speaking.
Alun:
[6:12] As someone who has been in love before sometimes it's a difficult proposition isn't it when you love some let's say something.
Adam:
[6:22] Yeah like a van like a van it's.
Alun:
[6:24] Difficult isn't it to know that someone else is gonna love it after you and while you might be joyful that someone's purchased the van how does it make you feel knowing that they are going to be falling in love with it.
Adam:
[6:39] Actually good actually really positive and.
Alun:
[6:42] That my friends is called polyamory it's.
Adam:
[6:44] Tropologies word of the week yeah, um so yeah anyway no i was gonna say that it's gone to someone that i know someone that i met up in auckland someone who is very excited about all the adventures they're gonna have in it and it's very very slow transition so i'm i'm always open i said look if you get any issues just text me if you don't know what something is or what it does just text me this is going to be a very slow handover.
The Van Sale
Alun:
[7:16] Get a picture of the gear stick. Okay.
Adam:
[7:22] It's automatic, actually. Hopefully, they'll be fine. But there's still a tropology sticker.
Alun:
[7:27] What is P-R-N-D-L? What is this word? Is Anglais?
Adam:
[7:32] There's a tropology poster still in the back window. So they're still representing.
Alun:
[7:38] So you can't see when you look over your shoulder?
Adam:
[7:42] Uh you you can't see when you look over your shoulder or in the rearview mirror as you should probably do uh but that's not because of the poster it's because i always keep the curtains of the back window closed i don't know why that is there is actually a letterbox cut out of the divider in between the back and the front but um that's just for peeping okay.
Alun:
[8:04] Well congratulations on the sale it sounds like a very modern situation that you've got going.
Adam:
[8:09] On and i'm uh progressive i think that's to be commended.
Alun:
[8:13] Yeah quite progressive and i hope that the person that's driving the van feels as comfortable with that arrangement as you clearly do and i hope that they have ever such a good adventure.
Adam:
[8:23] They will i mean anyone who's who's sold a vehicle that has meant so much to them even though it was you know worth that much really it's difficult isn't it when you're pricing something to think about its, sort of the value of the vehicle as opposed to the value of the vehicle plus all of your memories and experiences with it.
Alun:
[8:42] Why is this van worth ten thousand dollars oh because it means a lot to.
Adam:
[8:47] Me yeah yeah it's a strange one but you kind of it's difficult to get through that because i also i know all of the experiences that they're going to have in the van and those experiences are what me made me think well even if i lose money on the van i don't mind because i've had the time of my life.
Alun:
[9:05] Oh, sorry, the van's a bit expensive. Not when you've had some experiences in here, baby.
Adam:
[9:10] I know it sounds mental. Maybe I haven't articulated what I mean very well.
Alun:
[9:16] If you actually calculate it by hour of the experiences you're going to have. I mean, when you're in here with someone and you're sharing a romantic glass of wine with the curtains drawn, just think of it. It's only about $2 an hour if you do that for hundreds of hours over the course of the time you have the van.
Adam:
[9:34] It's an absolute bargain, but I'm really, really glad to move it on to someone who's going to take good care of it. And it was actually the last piece to the puzzle of me leaving New Zealand, mate. So beware. I'm not that far away now.
Alun:
[9:51] Yeah, it was just a van keeping you away from Japan, wasn't it, really? That van was the final, like, wall of my defences before you come colliding into my life. I kept on having to like send people messages prospective buyers sending them emails saying there's rust on the underside oh the game shifts a bit sticky just buying them away to buy myself more time to sort out my life here but unfortunately this person was quite insistent and now there's nothing keeping you you're gonna have to come and hang out that's.
Adam:
[10:21] It mate so um money's in the bank now i've got the funds to pay for the flight to japan uh where i'm hoping that you've oiled up greased up and done whatever else is necessary to your landlord to allow me to kip at your place.
Alun:
[10:37] Yeah um no is the answer he doesn't know that you're coming yet um and actually more than that my payment for this month's rent defected because he tried to take it out of my account at 1am as soon as the day transferred over to the next month he tried to take the money out of my account and it wasn't there just because i'm using like a separate account that i top up you know do you know what i mean like it comes out of revolute and i top it up and i hadn't topped up yet because I was expecting maybe he would try and take it out sort of on the first day and not 1am. So we're in an argument currently, and it seems like it's going to be a challenge for you to come and stay. But I will sort that out soon. I think maybe we should just, however much you would spend on a hostel, flick me that money and I'll upgrade to a slightly nicer place. So that might be how it has to work. I'd love to host you, but I mean,
Hostel Common Room
Alun:
[11:31] simply struggling just to host myself at the moment.
Adam:
[11:35] That doesn't sound like a scam at all. Alun, something that we haven't done for a very long time is spoken about our lovely listeners and the fact that they email in and ask us questions. So I think it would be a really good time to go to one of our favourite items on the show.
Alun:
[11:49] It's Hostel Common Room. Imagine, if you will, a sort of beautiful hostel, a palatious space which you can traverse inside, welcomed at the front desk by an attractive volunteer. They show you to your dorm room. You pack your bag out, you unpack it, you sort of hang your towel up on the side of the bed where you climb up, put your bag in a locker and then you think, let me check out the common space. You go outside, you drift, you meander through the kitchen to an area that opens up and right there in front of you are two sort of characters one bearded with a tie one with right floppy hair and headphones and the two of them are talking discussing and you think i want to ask those guys a question that's what we offer you here at tropology that exact experience you can do it by going to our contact form the link to which you can find in the show notes or description the.
Adam:
[12:49] Reason i'm giggling is because before the show I mentioned how awful my hair looks and I said to Alun we're gonna have to mention my hair we're gonna have to address it because I can't go live on air uh without saying something it's it's too long it's unkempt it's just not a style it's just grown out and um yeah I mean if you're watching.
Alun:
[13:12] What did I say Adam in response to that you.
Adam:
[13:15] Said Adam you mention your hair every single week, I think we should go one week where we give the listeners a what did you say, give them a week off or something talking about your hair?
Alun:
[13:26] I said give them a week off yeah, and then I transgressed in mentioning it very briefly in an otherwise interesting monologue and it's led to what can only be described as at least 40 second, meandering through the lane of your follicles, but as you nan said nice that you've got them um.
Adam:
[13:46] Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I knew you were going to squeeze it in some way. You can't resist. We have had an email from a fellow backpacker, a fellow traveler. Very interesting one, actually. And I'm sure this is one that will spark very interesting conversation. It is from Batiste. And Batiste says, hey, both. I love Tripology and have been listening for the last year. I'm 32, living in London for the last seven years. And after working, traveling across nearly 50 countries, I still have a big pull to leave corporate life for 6 to 12 months or longer to travel or work overseas again. What holds me back primarily is the pressure that comes with being in your 30s. I'd love to hear how you, as travellers in your 30s, think about things like... Point number one, handling the social pressure to settle down instead of travel. Two, the fear of missing career opportunities or falling behind peers. Number three, balancing saving, investing for the future versus spending money on travel. Number four is missing friends and family milestones while away long term. And number five, avoiding staleness in long term travel. Do you set goals or structure while traveling?
Batiste's Big Questions
Adam:
[14:51] I sometimes find that after a few months, the novelty can fade. I imagine there are others in a similar position. So I wondered if this could make a good podcast episode. He's not wrong.
Alun:
[15:03] Batiste, you wonderful, sexy, 32-year-old backpacker, pondering all of life's questions. Yeah, I like to think of Batiste there. He wants to travel. He's bought a backpack. He's got his packing cubes, but he's all riddled with anxieties about it. What I would say to you, Batiste, in a very succinct manner is the following. I think the pressures of sort of being in your 30s, you've got to do stuff, they are mitigated if you hang around with other 30-year-olds who are doing unconventional things. If you're hanging around with 30-year-olds who are all in office garb, like me, working for other people, employed, they've got taxes and pensions and all that jazz, you're going to feel like, oh, maybe I'm falling behind. But if you hang out like me, all my friends now, they're like travel people, all my best friends. And so on accounts of that, I don't feel any pressure or judgment from them because they just are all about what I'm doing. They think it's really cool. And we share stories. And I think it's a really interesting thing.
Alun:
[16:09] And I also think that you're only falling behind in career opportunities, really, whilst you're traveling if you're traveling wrong. I mean that really wholeheartedly. Traveling has forwarded my career in all the ways that are meaningful to me. Like I am interested in audio production and podcasting, so I do a travel podcast. I'm interested in music, so I do other things that are musical. I'm interested in animals. So I've like done things in animal wildlife rehab that I couldn't have done if I wasn't traveling. So in many, many ways, traveling done correctly forwards your career more than just, I mean, doing a job for someone else sort of on a very railed track might do.
Adam:
[16:56] I do agree with that. I do agree with that wholeheartedly. If I use me as an example, travel has accelerated my career because I've been able to achieve jobs in markets where there's less competition. So if you use sort of London in this example, or even Europe, if I was to go for the same job in Europe, there'd be sort of 200 people applying for the same role who are more qualified, highly educated, probably speak multiple languages and more experienced. so I wouldn't even get a look in. But if you go somewhere like Canada or New Zealand or Australia, where there are just less people in the market, the pool of people to choose from, you can end up getting a job that's much higher in terms of the pay or responsibilities, and you just keep on moving up. So I don't know where the feeling of that comes from. I don't think we really think about looking elsewhere in order to further our careers. But I do, from my experience, certainly, if you go somewhere with the right attitude and you're willing to take a bit of a risk, then it can accelerate your career and then some, and then you just go from strength to strength.
Alun:
[17:58] I think what happens sometimes, I do think it's a bit of a mistake, but it's really, really normal, is people are excited about traveling. So they think of traveling as this monolith, like I want to travel. Travel is the thing I want to do. And if you do that, sure, you'll have a great time. You'll see a bunch of amazing things. But that other thing you mentioned, the staleness of long-term travel, it will set in.
Alun:
[18:23] And maybe people don't make that clear. When you see like amazing, sexy travel influences riding sharks, you might think, how could that ever get stale? But that's because it's a snapshot, right? And the reality is if you're traveling, it is going to get stale. Like I promise you, I promise you it's going to get stale. You're going to get bored. That temple will get boring. That shark will be less surfable. That beach won't hit the spot anymore. That is going to happen. So really what you should do is decide that you want traveling to be a part of your life. Find the other things that you're interested in. Find the other things that tick your boxes, whether it's language learning, food and drink, music, teaching, animals, dancing. Find the thing that gets you going and find a way for travel to be a vector for those interests that's how travel is sustainable if it acts as the medium and not the object then it doesn't get stale because you're using it rather than having it use you you're not just seeking experience after experience, you're seeking a fulfilling life and you're using travel as the search engine.
Balancing Travel and Savings
Adam:
[19:52] What he said um definitely if if uh your travel objectives can sort of be facilitated by an industry or a passion and that's what takes you around the world uh then it absolutely is sustainable uh you just need to sort of find out have one eye on the future i think we should come to that point mate after you very succinctly and comprehensively answered that one the balance in saving versus investing for the future um what's our advice there i mean i my relationship with money is um what's the word pretty fluid i mean it comes it goes i'm sort of someone who likes to work short-term contracts and then blow the money i do save on more travel and even.
Alun:
[20:37] Though i.
Adam:
[20:38] Said to myself at the very beginning that isn't a sustainable model it is what sustained travel so.
Alun:
[20:44] You also might be dead in the future like i'm sorry batiste and obviously i hope you're not and i hope you live a long and fulfilling life and the same for you adam and i hope that for myself but the reality is the only thing that you have is the present the future is an idea and the past is a memory and what is actually happening to you right now is right now and at some point you're gonna have to spend some money to take control of that you can invest for the idea of a future that you think you definitely will have but in actual fact you might have and that's great and smart and i'm not saying that you shouldn't do that but at some point you've got to look at what's happening to you right now in the moment and take control of it in the way that you want to do i personally think if you invest on yourself right now and you have things that you want to do and you want to use travel as the search engine to find them, you should spend money on doing that. Build the life that you actually want to live.
Alun:
[21:46] Set that up and then find ways to invest for your future once you've got that bit sorted but living a life that you think is vaguely insufferable or intolerable or just about tolerable enough to carry on doing it because it gives you money enough to invest in the life that you think that you want to have in the future the idea that you have I mean no one when they're picturing themselves in the future imagines themselves fucking miserable because they're hoping that their present self would sort them out. But I don't even know if I'll have control of my bladder in 50 years time, let alone like if I want to invest.
Living in the Moment
Alun:
[22:20] I don't want to invest in that guy. I want to invest in this guy that I am now, right? And another thing that people forget is that if you saved and had all this money, if you like planned your life so that you had all that money in 30 years time, you put it all away so that in 30 years time you had a bunch of cash you've heard people say this before it's like a common thing people say but you would give all that money away then to feel as good as you do now so it's actually worth nothing that money in it because you want to be how you are now again uh 60 year old me would spend all this cash to feel as good as 30 year old me and i'm convinced of that.
Adam:
[23:03] Yeah i'm so glad that you said that mate because now i feel like i've got license to open up a little bit and um not that we're trying to be morbid or anything but there's a very very personal reason why i travel so much and it's kind of in that vein really because i i have thought about this sort of stuff for a long time and been worried about the future in terms of sort of health or deterioration and getting old and that sort of thing and i know that sounds like a ridiculous thing for a sort of 20 year old or 25 year old or 30 year old to even think but the reality is i read an article last year which said that the healthy living age in the UK is 61. So, of course, the average life expectancy is much higher than that. It's probably 80, 85, whatever. But the healthy life expectancy is 61, which means at 61, things start to go wrong on average, which is actually before the age of retirement.
Adam:
[24:00] So I know now, and this is where the sort of present day thing comes in and investing in yourself now, I know that tomorrow morning I can get up and do a 10K, just like that. I know that I can climb a mountain. I know that I can you know go and do loads of different things that require physical activity because I've got two arms that work two legs that work two eyes two ears two no I haven't got two noses you get what you get what I'm saying is that the whole time you're healthy and you have the appetite to travel you have to do it now because it is only going to get harder and it's only going to get more expensive and those two things are have to be true they are absolutely true.
Alun:
[24:35] Yeah and you having anxiety about that and thinking oh god yeah but you know it's all well and good saying that but you know what if i what if a b or c happens i want to have a nest egg all that stuff i'm not shitting on that idea i do think there's a time and a place for being conservative i'm very conservative with my money and i don't spend very much so i don't have to say very much but the reality is you feel that way for a reason to some extent it's because from the age of four years old you were put into a school which was institutionalized to make you a good worker nine to five get up.
Alun:
[25:21] Get an education, go to sleep, so that in your future you can get up, go do a job, go to sleep, repeat, so you're useful for the economy, so you're useful to society, so that you'll carry on working yourself to death, so that at 61, when you're just about finished with your work, but you're just about too fucked up to enjoy your life, just then will relinquish you and have a pension and go and enjoy the rest of your days but I ain't the time for that now's the time to enjoy your life so I would just put all your resources into trying to enjoy the life you live now which brings us to Batiste's last point I would say which is the one that I think is the most legitimate of a worry which is missing out on big things for friends and family occasions relationships I mean yeah.
Alun:
[26:16] The reality is, if you're traveling a long time, you're going to miss that time with your family. And that is an unavoidable consequence of choosing, perhaps selfishly, to live for yourself. I can just say that in my experience, I'm closer with my family in a huge way. I'm closer with my family now than I ever was living at home. And I mean that on a quality time spent perspective in terms of I spend more time with them and more intentional time with them when I do see them. I mean that in terms of a day to-day perspective in that I like call them more and talk to them more.
Alun:
[26:54] And I mean that on interpersonal, psychological, emotional level in that I feel closer to them and have more love and understanding for them each as individuals. So just do with that information what you will, basically. I think that although you'll almost certainly spend less time in your family and loved one's physical presence, there are ways around that in terms of the time you spend with them and the quality time that you invest in them. So with that, Batiste, I hope you leave the hostel common room feeling all emboldened and happy. And I really hope that you do take the plunge and go away for six months, 12 months, see how you like it, but do it with intentionality to try and pursue
Missing Milestones
Alun:
[27:40] other things in your life. I don't want to promote mindless, aimless travel for the sake of traveling because I think that's...
Alun:
[27:48] All well and good when you're you know fresh out of college and you don't know what to do with your life and that's certainly kind of what i did but i realized after just a few years that wasn't very fulfilling so i think uh travel with intention and travel well and i'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Adam:
[28:02] Thanks ever so much mate thank you for writing in we really appreciate it it was a lovely question and we hope you found the answer useful Alun we've got to go off to the lost and found section now where hopefully you're going to tell us a cheeky little anecdote from what you've been up to over in Tokyo?
Alun:
[28:17] Oh, well, I hope so. I'll think of one right quick. I'll see you there. Patreon. It's just to spend a little bit of money, perhaps the cost of a stick of deodorant or a microphone stand or even a bottle of fizzy water, just a nominal fee.
Lost and Found Anecdotes
Alun:
[28:31] And you can come and join us over on Patreon. The link's in the description. In the Lost and Found section, we talk about all kinds of nonsense and we hope to see you there.
Adam:
[28:41] Thanks ever so much, guys. We'll see you there. Bye-bye.
