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Long-term travel, while enriching, can lead to a sense of temporal and social disconnection, financial setbacks, a critical perspective on American culture, and a diminished sense of presence and spontaneity upon return.
The video explores the significant downsides of a long-term hardcore travel lifestyle, beginning with the profound sense of time passing and disconnection. The host, Alex, recounts experiences of returning to the U.S. after extended periods abroad, only to find that personal lives and global events have moved on without his presence. This detachment is amplified by not being immersed in local news cycles or languages, leading to awkwardness when discussing familiar topics with friends and family who have experienced milestones like new relationships or home purchases.
Beyond social and temporal disconnects, the financial and career consequences of extensive travel are significant. While the host acknowledges that the 'corporate grind' lifestyle can lead to unhappiness, he also admits that prioritizing travel over career advancement has meant slower financial progress, with friends who stayed in the U.S. becoming homeowners while he still rents. However, he notes a trade-off: travel has taught him to live with less, fostering financial discipline and reducing the burden of material possessions and associated expectations, which can prevent burnout experienced by others.
A critical perspective on American culture emerges as another consequence. The host observes a pervasive 'hustle bro' culture driven by a sense of insufficiency and constant competition, contrasting it with a more relaxed 'live and let live' mentality found in places like Southeast Asia. He notes a focus on material acquisition over experiences in the U.S., and a tendency towards reactivity and control, making genuine connection and direct feedback challenging. This can lead to feelings of isolation and a longing for the spontaneity and vibrant environments experienced abroad.
Finally, the video addresses the loss of presence and spontaneity. Returning to the U.S. after experiencing the world makes one more aware of how Americans are constantly looking toward the future or caught up in daily tasks, rather than living in the present. This self-awareness can make it difficult to feel fully present at home, leading to a desire to return abroad. The host contrasts the caution and suspicion often felt in the U.S. with the open friendliness and spontaneous interactions experienced in places like Thailand, highlighting how escaping the 'matrix' of conventional life makes it hard to fully reintegrate.
Long term travel can lead to a sense of temporal and social disconnection, making it feel like time is passing you by. You might also experience financial and career setbacks compared to those who remain on a traditional path. A critical perspective on home culture and difficulty reintegrating are also common outcomes.
Prioritizing extended travel over a traditional career can result in slower financial and career progression. While this may foster an appreciation for living with less, it means friends who stayed home might reach milestones like homeownership sooner.
Reverse culture shock is the feeling of alienation and disconnection experienced when returning home after a prolonged absence. Your worldview may have shifted significantly, making your familiar environment feel foreign and challenging to reintegrate into.
Extended travel can create a feeling of time passing you by, leading to disconnection from personal and global events and relationships. Not being immersed in local news or conversations can make it awkward to reconnect with friends and family.
While travel can teach valuable lessons about living with less and financial discipline, prioritizing it over career advancement often leads to slower financial growth. The cost of living back home can also seem disproportionately high after experiencing cheaper destinations.
Experiencing other cultures can highlight perceived flaws in your home country's culture, such as excessive materialism or a hyper-competitive mentality. This critical perspective can make reintegration into familiar societal norms more challenging.
Prioritizing long-term travel over a traditional career path can lead to slower financial and career progression. While friends may become homeowners, travelers might still be renting. However, this lifestyle can foster financial discipline and a reduced focus on material possessions, potentially preventing burnout.
Returning to the U.S. after extended travel can be difficult due to a sense of disconnection from personal and global events. Friends and family move on with their lives, and immersion in local news or languages is lost, making reintegration feel alien. This reverse culture shock can make it hard to feel fully present at home.
Experiencing other cultures can highlight a perceived 'hustle bro' culture in the U.S. driven by competition and a focus on material acquisition. This contrasts with a more relaxed 'live and let live' mentality found elsewhere, where genuine connection and spontaneity may be more prevalent.
Long-term travel can diminish one's sense of presence and spontaneity, making it challenging to reintegrate into familiar environments. The constant immersion in new experiences abroad can make it difficult to simply be present at home, leading to a desire to return to the spontaneity found elsewhere.
Yes, the cost of living in places like Thailand can be significantly lower than in parts of the U.S. like California. Rent, meals, and daily expenses can be a fraction of what they are domestically, making it an attractive option for long-term stays or retirement.
Living abroad long-term can impact social security contributions, potentially leading to reduced benefits upon return. While some countries have lower living costs that might be covered by social security payments, maintaining contributions and considering investments is often advised.
0:02 Hey YouTube, Alex here and in today's video I want to talk about the downsides of the hardcore travel lifestyle I lived for a long time. Probably many of these are things that my long-term subscribers have thought about, but if you're new to the channel, my name's Alex and I have actually spent about 3 years outside of the US.
0:26 I came back to the US about a year ago to pursue my financial freedom so I can move abroad long-term. The first sense that I get from this hardcore travel lifestyle is the sense that time has passed me by.
0:42 I remember my first trip abroad was to Israel about 11 years ago and I was gone for about 3 weeks and I came back and stuff had changed or stuff had happened, but I wasn't present for it and that was only 3 weeks. A few years later, I would go to Thailand for a month and a year and a half after that, I spent about 4 months traveling in Asia. I think a year or two later, I spent about 6 months in Latin America.
1:17 During these times, things happened in the US, things happened globally and I don't really think about those things when I'm traveling. I'm not as in touch with the 24/7 news cycle, which frankly a lot of the news loses value very quickly. This is a real thing that some people who have traveled a lot notice where I would talk to friends back home and they would bring up something that was in international news and I did not really understand what they were talking about because in some other country it was irrelevant, right? It just wasn't in popular discourse in that country I was traveling in.
1:59 I don't speak the local language, so I'm not going up to somebody in another country asking them, "Hey, you know, I heard such and such was on the news. What happened there?" And honestly, in some ways this can be positive. Like I said, a lot of news is not super valuable. A lot of it's noise.
2:18 But there is this awkwardness when you come back from a long time abroad and people are talking about stuff that happened in their personal lives, for example. That is a bit more interesting to me as far as friends. And they hit these big milestones. Maybe somebody develops a new romantic relationship. Somebody else buys a house and they throw a housewarming party. And you're not present for any of that. You're somewhere far away. You're interacting with other people. You're building new friendships. You are experiencing other things. You're living in the moment.
2:59 For us Americans, you're typically not in the corporate grind when you're abroad unless you're a digital nomad or a remote worker. And for me, it's much more often than travel for pleasure or uh you know, some other purpose than to just go abroad and work. So, when you come back, you feel like what I call a stranger in a strange land.
3:21 I remember when I came back from Latin America and I started getting confused and frustrated. I don't know how to explain it, but I was just like, "What's going on here? What?" I hadn't been back to my hometown. This happened to me in my hometown for 7 years. I think I'd visited briefly maybe one time, but I generally tried to avoid it. And I remember driving around the town and not knowing where I was, not knowing what had happened. I felt like I was in a dream state and it was very confusing.
3:57 I drove by the house that I grew up in and entirely different people were living there. They have no idea who I am. I wanted to go up to the door and knock, but that would be super weird, so I didn't do that. I just felt like I was in this haze and didn't really understand what was going on. When I grew up there, I would go about town, run into people I knew. In this time, in this visit, I didn't see anyone I knew, except for my friend and his mom.
4:28 And being a tenant of hers, I saw her more regularly than I even saw him. He had moved on with his life. Everybody had moved on with their lives. And that's something that she stated to me was, "Look, people have moved on. You need to wake up. You need to realize that things have changed." And so, it was very confusing and I had the sense that time had just passed me by, that who I was was not aligned with where I was from. And that's just a very strange feeling.
5:06 I remember seeing people that I knew on occasion. Like I said, mostly just a couple of friends' parents. And they looked a lot older. And that threw me off as well. Like, what happened to everybody? And I looked in the mirror and I looked older. Very, very disorienting and it lasted for a while.
5:26 Now, I've done more trips and travel since then. I have taken time to reflect, but this is a big factor of long-term travel that really just threw me off. The next point is that I'm not as well off as I could be. When you travel like this, it will disrupt your career. My career is not what it could have been if I had been more focused on the grind.
5:53 But to be fair, growing up, I saw a lot of people living the grind, my mom included, worked two full-time jobs, and my stepdad ran a business, and they seemed very unhappy. There's value in the sacrifices they made to work. When you work all the time like that, you tend to make financial progress, material progress in your life, where for me, I'm still renting a room. I do get to live in California. It's very beautiful, and it's not uncommon for people to rent rooms here in California because cost of living is high.
6:27 You need to share expenses. But, friends of mine who did not choose my lifestyle are homeowners. Now, I know, it's fair to say the bank owns their home, the city owns the land underneath their home, or at least has the right to collect taxes on it, but I did not make the financial progress I would have made if I had just stayed working.
6:51 Now, simultaneously, I do think that I have set myself up for progress because I've learned to live with less. A lot of my friends who never really traveled here in the states, they have a lot of financial obligations. They've got the mortgage. They've got the car payment. They have taxes on all this stuff. They've got to store all this crap they bought. There's so much that goes into maintaining that lifestyle. They have a lot more expectations placed upon them.
7:23 If you go higher up in your career, if you're not an entry-level employee, people are going to generally expect you to understand how to do stuff. You're not going to get as much slack, where uh you know, I think I run into that, where people see my age, and they're surprised that I'm not as refined as maybe somebody who lived the grind.
7:45 To offset that, because I think this is a trade-off sort of thing, I don't feel quite as, I think, ground down in some ways as some people my age that seem to be more burnt out. I still feel like, "Hey, you know what? If I retire on time, which I'd like to retire early, but if I retire on time, I've still got several decades of work ahead of me. You know, I feel like, 'Hey, I got to enjoy some of the best years of my life health-wise, energy-wise, and there's something positive to be said about that because I can reflect on a lot of my experiences with a smile.
8:23 But, it does suck sometimes and I'm like, "Man, there were some years in there I could have maxed out my Roth IRA. That would have been great. I could have made some jumps in my career to where I might be doing work I find more enjoyable rather than work that I find kind of tolerable.
8:42 These are things that I think about what my life would have been like if I hadn't been so focused on traveling and exploration and more focused on living the grind. Some of my friends that persisted and persisted have really managed to make progress in their careers. However, I will say some of them have expressed to me a lack of fulfillment. Like, "Hey, I thought I got the high five-figure, you know, low six-figure income, then I would be happy. And due to inflation, it doesn't really feel like as much as I thought it would when I was a kid.
9:24 I mean, I remember when I was a kid, "Wow, you make a hundred thousand a year. That's a ton of money." Where now that's not really a ton of money. You're doing okay. Really, you need to pair it with another six-figure earner. And most Americans don't make a hundred thousand a year. So, you're trying to find the few people that are like nurses or doctors or lawyers or accountants, and you're you're looking for a needle in a haystack.
9:52 But, it's fair to say if I had just gra- if I had just done the grind, I could have retired early. However, I will say going abroad taught me to understand the value of money because you go to other countries that are far poorer, and people have a appreciation for money where I had a lot of frivolous spending when I was a late teenager and in my early 20s because I thought money just grew on trees.
10:20 I mean, America was super prosperous when I was a little kid, and I grew up thinking it would always be that way. Um but, when traveling abroad, having to live out of a backpack for half a year at a time, and my longest trip, I lived out of a backpack for 2 years, you learn, "Wow, I can be happy without all this stuff." So, in moving abroad, I learned financial discipline because I figured out what would make me happy, and I realized, "Man, I don't need all this crap." Where I think if you haven't traveled abroad, you feel like, "Man, if I don't have the car, the truck, the house, the this, the that, I can't be happy. I cannot be happy with anything less than this latest new thing." And then you buy the new thing, and after a month, you're tired of it.
11:04 Ah, "Man, it sucks. With this truck, I have to get maintenance all the time, or with this house, I have to do yard work all the time." And you get stuck in this treadmill. To sum it up, what I would have done to be more effective would be live below my means, have worked on my career, saved and invested a lot of that money.
11:25 But, most people in America don't live that way. Most people, if they make more money, they're going out and spending.
11:30 Money, they're going out and spending more money. They're asking what kind of payment does this qualify me for, rather than what can I reasonably save up with this income and pay for this item in cash? I thought for some reason eventually people would figure it out, but I still see people living above their means in the US.
11:52 The number three thing that's changed since I did a lot of long-term travel, I have noticed the flaws in American culture. I have noticed, like I mentioned in the previous point, people living above their means. I also notice the hustle bro culture: 'I need to do everything better. I need to lift more weight. I need to make more money. I need to be more attractive.'
12:18 I need to, I need to, I need to. There's this sense of insufficiency here for a lot of people because in the United States, you're around the best in the world. You live in the country with the best in the world, many of the best engineers, best athletes, best entertainers, best of everything. And if you're not the best, a lot of us feel like we're last.
12:43 And I've noticed that some people feel insufficient to where they think, 'I'm going to grind to be the best at this thing.' And if they don't hit that thing, they feel so insufficient. This sense of competition just isn't as prevalent, I've noticed, in some other countries. Or as an expat, I don't participate in it, so I don't see the tacky behavior quite as much in some of the places I like to go because I don't know what I'm looking at.
13:13 I don't really know what I'm seeing, but also there's not enough material wealth there to make that as much of an ever-present sort of issue. Anytime I go to the nearby big city, I see people with fancy vehicles wanting to be a high roller at the casinos. In other countries, people seem to be more satisfied with just like family life.
13:41 And I don't see that as much here. And it's something that when people project their insecurities here, which I feel like they do a lot, they say, 'Well, why don't you do this? Well, why don't you do that? You could have this. You could have that.' What if I don't want this? What if I don't want that?
13:55 And so, it can be very isolating when you come back. And I know I have friends where I'll visit them, and every time you visit, this is different friends in different parts of the country. This is not meant to condescend what they desire. If you value certain things in America, you have a good shot of getting them, assuming you work hard and you're smart.
14:16 But it's always, 'Look at what I bought. I bought this thing. I bought that thing.' But it's rarely, 'I got to experience this. I got to experience that.' Because when you're trying to get ahead here, you typically have to work a lot. And when you work a lot, your experiences are mostly related to your work life.
14:37 And so, once the conversation wraps up about the latest thing that I bought, then it moves on to, 'Man, work sucks.' And I've been there, don't get me wrong. Like, much of my time in the US is spent at work, or preparing for work, or recovering from work. And it's not particularly interesting.
14:54 My channel got a lot more views when I was living in Southeast Asia because that lifestyle is far more interesting than my lifestyle here in America and the lifestyle of most American people. There are other flaws as well. People here tend to be more reactive and controlling from what I've noticed.
15:16 You don't get as much of the 'live and let live' mentality like you find in Southeast Asia. You at times feel like you're walking on eggshells around people. You have to tiptoe around the elephant in the room. You cannot necessarily give direct feedback because you risk alienating somebody.
15:36 And that's something that's been isolating for me as well, which is something that can be good, right? You can develop more self-reflection, you can develop more self-awareness. But it's very different from the light-hearted street scenes I experienced in Thailand or the Philippines, where people are just living in the moment. They're just enjoying life.
15:57 Something that shifted my thinking from long-term travel is coming back here and being like, 'Wow, I see some people abroad that have a far less that are made out to be, 'Oh, their country's so bad.'' I'm not saying there's not bad people in some of the places I've been. I've been in some countries with some severe problems.
16:15 But America, I felt like, always bills itself as better, as the best of the best. And at times, seeing behind the facade where it's like, 'Oh, wow, like this isn't really that unique, this part of our culture.' One thing would be some of the pride that I encounter here.
16:32 Where I think if you criticize, then you're actually using critical thinking and you can improve things. Engineers do this all the time. You're trying to build a product, critique the design. How can we make the design better?
16:45 That's partly why safety is such a top priority in the United States. Aside from the litigious lawyers that have a big impact on the country, you also have really sharp engineers that are thinking, 'How do we make this better?' Not just, 'Ah, you know, it's good enough.'
16:58 Nobody ever said that about the iPhone or the Tesla, like, 'Ah, you know what? It's good enough.' I know people hate these companies and products, but I actually like Apple products. I don't own a Tesla product, but I think that part of what makes them great products, at least on a global scale, they're very desirable, is that people are constantly critiquing.
17:18 'How do we make this better?' Even now, people are trying to figure out, engineers, right as we speak, during their work week, are trying to figure out, 'How do we make the iPhone better? How do we make the Tesla better?'
17:31 And that's something that offends other people. I've had people tell me, 'Oh, look at how bad California is.' Well, look, if you can't afford it, 'Oh, how dare you say that?' If you can't afford to live in California, because you don't have the skills to make enough money to live in California, that doesn't mean California is bad. That just means you can't afford to live there.
17:51 This direct honesty that I've encountered overseas that can be refreshing, depending on where you go, at times feels unwelcome here in some circles. Now, if I had been more disciplined and got a better education and worked harder, I could probably be around people with more integrity, but that's just something I've noticed.
18:07 The final problem is that I don't feel myself being as present here in the US, and I have more self-awareness of that. Because I think once you go abroad, you're aware of that, that in America, we're constantly looking toward the future. I don't think Americans think about that all the time. I think a lot of Americans are like, 'I'm just getting my stuff done. I got to go to work. I got to get chores done. I got to do this. I got to do that.'
18:30 But when I come back here, I have more self-awareness of that, and it doesn't feel quite so normal. So, I'm, in a way, in America, counting down my days for my time until I can move abroad again. And as a result, I'm not on the same page as a lot of my fellow Americans.
18:44 A lot of my friends in America, family members, they're never moving abroad. They probably will never even leave the country. For most of my friends who have been outside of the country, they've been to Canada or to Mexico for a very brief time. That's probably 80% or 90% of my friends. Very few would ever consider going abroad.
19:03 And a lot of my friends that have gone abroad, I met through the channel, so they're not people I met organically through work or through my hometown. These are people that are scattered across the states that had that drive to go explore and adventure. That's something that has been the final sort of challenge that comes to mind when I think about the consequences of me traveling abroad long-term.
19:25 I'm thinking, 'Man, I want to go back abroad.' Here you don't necessarily always feel present because people bring up the football game or the basketball game or the election or the war or this or that. And I'm just thinking, 'Man, like I miss being in that vibrant environment. I miss seeing interesting things and talking to interesting people.'
19:47 And I miss spontaneity. And so my mind is somewhere else even though my body is here in the United States. My mind is thinking about this sort of daydream. I remember wandering through the outskirts of Bangkok, places where very few tourists go, and experiencing interesting Thai cuisine, or seeing surprise looks.
20:11 I remember one time when I was in Bangkok, not even very far in the west side, like a mile from ICONSIAM, and this Thai man, really friendly guy, he comes up to me. He thinks I'm lost, so he starts giving me directions, even though this is not a bad neighborhood, which are very rare in Thailand. Even though I have plenty of water, there's like a 7-Eleven around the corner, he thinks that I'm totally lost and is trying to help me out.
20:35 And so, that would never happen in the US these days. I think that could have happened maybe 10, 20 years ago. That sense of spontaneity is not as present here these days. And you have to be, I feel, more cautious. I have to be looking out more. I'm more suspicious here. I'm more weary here, where in Thailand you feel like you can just drop your shoulders, if that makes any sense.
21:01 And so, that's the thing here where once you escape the matrix, you can't put everything back in Pandora's Box. And for me anyway, I've enjoyed my experiences so much. I even evaluate financial decisions differently. Yesterday, I spent $25 on lunch at a great Filipino restaurant down in Reno.
21:20 But, afterwards, I was thinking, 'Man, $25, I could have gone for sushi twice in Bangkok for that price, three times in Shanghai for that price.' Once you've gone abroad and you see the value that your dollar has overseas, it makes it...
21:35 Your dollar has overseas, it makes it harder to enjoy some of the things that we have on offer here in America because things are so expensive. So, yeah, let me know what you think down in the comments below. Have you ran into any of these? Maybe you've traveled back to the States to visit after going abroad.
21:50 Maybe you experienced reverse culture shock. I'm always curious to know what everybody else has to say. Give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed this content and subscribe if you haven't already, and we'll see you soon. Bye-bye.
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