Today I got an email on YouTube from a guy who wants to travel, but finds himself reluctant and didn’t seem to know where to start. I answered his email, and thought, “this could be useful for some other folks too.” So here you go!

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Dear Reluctant Traveler,

Travel is a bit of a bug. Once it gets in you, it’s really hard to avoid it – it’s an inevitability. But it’s good to show a little restraint and not just run off without learning anything (though that can be fun too). Personally, for me the process was complex. I left the US first to work, and so I was already “on the road” in a sense. That made it a lot less of a jump 8 years later when I decided to hit the road in a real sense as a full-time traveler.

My best advice for you is to ask yourself 2 questions:
Why do I want to travel?
How will I travel?

Everything revolves around that. For me the why was because I wanted to find out what people do around the world to help each other and to basically learn about people in different places.
Once you get the why down, the how is very simple.
For me, I travel to learn about people, not places. So I just go wherever the wind takes me and learn about the people there using a few tools like couchsurfing, hostelworld, and wikitravel. I’m not traveling to see specific UNESCO world heritage sites or anything like that…I could really care less about that kinda stuff, so the only time I find myself going to major tourist sites is when my quest to connect with the people leads me there inadvertently. You can’t really plan how to meet people the way you can for sights, so that means my how is a lot less organized and planned out than many people’s travels. It also means that I use a lot less money and can avoid scammers, thieves, and massive crowds a bit better than your typical tourist who is going for the sights.

The why is the first step. Think it out a bit, and the how will fall into place. ^_^