Travel Support Thursday

Welcome back to Travel Support Thursday, number 14, is it 14?

15?

15?

I think it's 15.

Whoa, welcome back to Travel Support Thursday, number probably 14 or 15, one of those two.

We've done a lot of these things, we've just been, there's been so many Thursdays.

We're going to have 365 Thursdays at some point and that's going to be fun.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, Travel Thursday, this is Travel Thursday.

I'm getting used to this.

God, the jingle continues to mystify me as to why anyone would ever want to hear it,

but we keep doing it ever.

I hope you like it.

I hope you like it, please.

If anyone out there doesn't like the jingle, I would love for you to tell me immediately

so we can drop it as quick as possible.

Why would you stir up some drama like that?

Everything's going just fine, just fine.

Just stuffy, man.

Travel Thursday, we are in a new location, surprise.

We are no longer in Vietnam, sad.

We just finished up that trip and God, what an experience that was.

It was really incredible.

We're going to talk about that a little bit in this episode.

We just made it to Tokyo, one of our favorite cities ever.

What are we doing in Tokyo?

We're sitting back, relaxing.

We're chilling, son.

Shooting some b-ball after school.

Shooting some b-ball outside of the school when a couple of guys, they were up to no

good.

They started making trouble in my neighborhood.

I got in one little fight and my mom got scared.

She said, you're coming to Tokyo, Japan before you head home for the holidays.

That's exactly what she said.

We're here for a little bit, catching up on some work, editing, and of course, relaxing.

Our hotel has a cento for a public bath, so we are maximizing that time.

Today, we're going to talk about our awesome time that we had in Vietnam.

There's truly no place like it, I think.

We're going to answer some of your questions about how to spend two months in Southeast

Asia and the burning, burning question of travel burnout.

Does it happen to us?

How do we deal with it?

Yeah, what do we do?

Do we ever get bored on the road?

Things like that.

How to prevent it over a long time.

That question is about a one-year trip specifically, which I think is a very common amount of time

to take on a trip.

We have so many thoughts about all these topics.

We created an entire itinerary for this two months across Southeast Asia trip, which I'm

really excited about.

I do think, I don't know, if I were going to Southeast Asia for the first time for two

months, I think this is exactly what I would do.

Yes, in case you were wondering, Josh made a spreadsheet.

Let's get into it.

What we just did in Vietnam, we were there for about two weeks.

We spent a couple of days in Hanoi, and then we went to Ha Long Bay, and then we went from

there to Ninh Binh, which was one of the highlights for us.

Absolutely.

Beautiful place, very backpacker focused right now.

I think it's going to grow into this luxurious resort destination if I had to track where

it's headed.

I would say, if you do go to Vietnam, now is the time to go to Ninh Binh, for sure.

From there, we took a train down for 12 hours during the day, and man, was that an experience,

way more lively than I'd ever experienced in an off-train.

Definitely not for rest and relaxation, I would say.

Not even remotely.

Definitely not one that you should take after spending, I don't know, four or five hours

karaoke with friends till 2 AM in the morning.

Oh my God.

The wrong time to take a train for sure.

It was definitely a fun experience.

You start, I mean, that train ride gave me a glimpse into, yeah, just how a lot of local

people travel.

It was such a fascinating long journey.

We took the train all the way down to Hue, where we got to experience all the local culture,

delicious food, and all of the local scams, of which there are many, and then from there

to Denang, which was very built up.

Very beachy.

Felt almost like a cancun, sort of feel.

Unfortunately for Denang, we were only there for a day, so I feel like we didn't really

get to see the other parts of Denang.

We were there specifically on the beach in the resort-y parts.

Yeah.

Got to spend only like 36 hours there or whatever.

Part of it was food poisoning too.

That voice thing as well.

Yeah.

That did happen.

Yeah.

Then after that, that was pretty much it.

Like we flew into Saigon, we had a day and a half there, and rounded the trip out with

an incredibly hectic and overwhelming big city.

How would you, three words, how would you sum up our trip in Vietnam?

Three words.

Or just how would you sum up Vietnam in three words?

I would say-

That's already three words.

The first word that comes to mind is overwhelming, because that's the first thing that I felt

as soon as we landed and got into Hanoi.

It was just kind of madness, especially considering where we had come from right before that.

There was a big juxtaposition and energy and kind of blah.

It just kind of felt like also crossing the street was a very dangerous thing to do, and

that there were motorbikes everywhere, and it was so loud and so like, it was just overwhelming

in every aspect, not just in the craziness of it, but also in how beautiful it was.

The food, how much variety, like every stall sold every single Vietnamese.

We spent two weeks there, and we didn't get to try everything we wanted to try.

No, I still want to try more Vietnamese food.

So I think overwhelming is for sure my first word.

What do you think of word number two?

There's so much wrapped up into this word, and I don't know, can I cuss on this channel?

Yeah.

Let it fly.

The first word that comes to mind is badass, like every single human being, I think, that

we interacted with, that we encountered, every single, like the history of Vietnam, everything.

I don't know, that's how I sum it up.

Every single person there is so resourceful and strong and tough, like physically, right?

There are women just carrying loads and loads of fruit baskets everywhere, they're rolling

these gigantic carts up a freaking hill, and then, you know, there was a woman rowing

four of us in a boat, like hours at a time, and I just, I mean, that's just like one part

of it, but then there's also all the people with all their side hustles, all their businesses,

and just to know everything that the people of Vietnam have been through as a country

and to come out, just like moving on, keep going, they're so resourceful, they're so badass.

I have so many feelings about it, but that is like one of the first things that comes

to mind.

Yeah, that's true.

Just like a totally indomitable spirit is what we saw in every aspect of life.

Just using every single resource available to them to make do, like we would meet so

many people, like running street food stalls, for example, and then they'd just like be

listening to English lessons on the side, or they'd have papers, like they wrapped

our banh mi sandwiches in English lesson papers, and I just like, I don't know, the amount

of creativity and resourcefulness that goes into living in Vietnam is just incredible,

incredible to me, inspiring.

And I think that leads pretty well into my third word, which is growing, and I think

that that's what's happening everywhere that we saw stuff as being built, infrastructure

is being fixed up or made better or built entirely anew, brand new internet going all

across the country.

There is new train lines being developed.

There are buses that go everywhere.

There are huge skyscrapers being built.

There's cable cars.

Cable cars.

But just like our serving commuters, like, yeah, it's just such an incredible country.

I mean, there's a part of me that wishes we went 10 years ago, five years ago, because

it was incredibly busy when we went in all of the bigger cities like Hanoi, Saigon, Hoi

An.

They were very, very popular cities, but yeah, like you can already tell that Vietnam is

gearing up for like mass tourism.

For sure.

Yeah, I'm excited to see what Vietnam will be like in five to six years.

I kind of wish we had also seen it five to six years ago because it definitely was busier

than I anticipated it would be.

But I think the thing that I loved about traveling through the country was even though we were

hitting up a lot of the big cities, popular tourist spots that you go on when you go to

a country for the first time, there were always small little gems that were to be discovered.

If you just didn't look up things, like I think almost invariably the best restaurants

that we ever ate at were the ones that were not on Anthony Bourdain's list.

They didn't have like 5,000 Google reviews.

Yeah, it wasn't on the Michelin Star list.

The ones that we just didn't think to try or, you know, I think there is a lesson in

this for us too and I think there's a tendency that we have whenever we're going to a new

place to want to find the best possible experience, to want to find the thing that makes us feel

the most safe that helps us avoid food poisoning, which funnily enough.

We don't even know what caused it because there was not a situation that we felt like

warranted it.

Yeah, it just like happened.

It could have been a culmination of everything anyway, but I think it was probably the karaoke

bus.

Just you got sick two days later.

Yeah, it was just one of those things where like I felt like the less that we planned

and the more that we just kind of like we talked about before, let the universe surprise

you a little bit.

We found some of the best experiences, like the boat that we took to Kapa or to Ha Long

Bay was not one of the most popular and not, I think there were only 20 reviews of it.

Yeah.

You know, and it was our favorite experience ever.

We met some really cool people along the way.

Highlighted the whole trip for me along with the karaoke bus along with.

Yeah.

There were a lot of highlights, but that for me was like, that's the thing I'll remember

is this like kind of weird, really cool boat company that we found that took us in totally

different parts of Ha Long Bay.

Yeah.

I don't know.

When I think of our time in Vietnam, those experiences are what I will remember the most,

the ones that we didn't plan for.

We didn't protect or review the crap out of.

Yeah.

It's a long one.

It's going to be a big one.

You got to settle in for this one.

It's a full journey.

It's going to be a big one.

Okay.

Let's get to the questions.

I'm really excited to talk about this two months in Southeast Asia thing.

You mean you're spreadsheet?

I mean, yes.

So our first question comes from at wears, Weddle, who asks, we have two months in Southeast

Asia, February to March, and have little time to plan rewatching all of your videos for

inspiration.

Would love to know how you'd recommend a first timer to Southeast Asia.

Spend these two months.

We're flying in and out of Bangkok with a Singapore stopover.

Nice.

We like slower travel.

So ideally staying places no less than a week before moving on, thinking Bangkok, Chiang

Mai, somewhere on water in Thailand, maybe Vietnam, I don't know.

They're also very worried about the heat and humidity understandable.

And they're also at the end of the one-year budget, so you have to keep it affordable.

Okay.

Okay.

So questions like this, and this one in particular, are the ones that immediately when we discuss

them cause arguments between us.

Oh, for sure.

Instantly.

Because we both have so many places that we love.

And have opinions about.

In this area, we both have opinions about which like order to do them in and how to think

about them and then what to do while you're actually there and how much money to spend.

But after many, many hours of disagreements back and forth between us, we have picked

out, I think, the best possible Southeast Asia trip over two months that we would do.

You know, like the ultimate thing that we would do.

And I think definitely the thing that we would recommend to you.

So we're starting off in Bangkok, which is awesome because I feel like Bangkok is one

of those cities that's just so vibrant, so, so awesome.

And just like there's so many great hotels, there's so many great restaurants, there's

so many great street food stalls, so many night markets.

Yeah.

It's a great place to get started.

You won't be bored there for seven days.

That's for sure.

No.

And like if you do, if you do get a little bit tired of the city life, I think one of

our favorite things to do in Bangkok is like take the ferry to any other parts of Bangkok,

like not just the big city part.

And then there's so many day trips that you can take from the city itself.

Yeah.

And also so many cool parts of town that aren't just in that main downtown tourist area.

Before we talk about where we go next after the first seven days there, since we're doing

a week at each place and we have two months, I'm just going to say we're going to go to

like approximately eight places.

So that's the total amount of spots we're picking Bangkok is one of them and then we

got to end it at Bangkok at the end.

So I'm thinking we're going to want to do two things, which is to not do more Thailand

right away.

And since you're flying in and out of Bangkok, right, so that means we're going to do no

more Thailand after Bangkok until the very end, because you have to be back there any

way to finish up the trip.

Right.

Yeah.

So back in Thailand, I mean, to finish up the trip.

So also, since we're since we're moving a little slower, right, I would say we'd want

to take the time to oscillate between like two extremes.

Bangkok's crazy busy.

You're moving to the light speed every single day and then probably do up next something

more relaxed, more beachy, maybe more just like a slower pace of life, smaller, more

unlikely.

So this is funny because I feel like this is one part where we sometimes get into little

tips about because like, I agree, I think that is that that makes sense and it's exciting

to go from an exciting place to a more relaxing place.

But I'm like, but what makes the most sense?

What's the most cheap flight that I can get for the train?

What's the closest?

Yeah.

I could just book this entire thing based on like, where's the next cheapest air Asia

flight out to and just take that.

But I think that over that long of a period of time, and this kind of leads into that

next question, is that like, you don't want to get burned out by just doing too much of

like intense large city stuff, I think.

And I feel like we've had this happen to us where we did like a Singapore and then a

Bangkok and then a Hanoi, all three like very busy, but we just got done with that and we

were exhausted halfway through it and we were just like, oh, no more cars.

No, yes, I just don't want to hear a motorbike for one minute.

No humans in my personal space.

So, so I think from that perspective, I feel like, and this is where we come came to a

venture is that it's time to head somewhere a little quieter.

More chill.

So from Bangkok, we thought it would be great to fly Southwest into Malaysia city called

Penang.

And I think this has the best street food anywhere on planet Earth.

Penang, Malaysia does.

And also has this giant wooden Buddha at the top of the hills, a great place to rent a

motorbike and kind of fly around everywhere.

But then after three nights there, take the boat from there up to Langkawi, beachy, beautiful

island destination.

Also Gersh's favorite place.

My favorite place on planet Earth, I love Langkawi.

There's so much exploration, a little bit of adventure there.

It can be very quiet in some places.

You can also ball out of control and stay on a beach resort too.

Yes.

I mean, there are, there is a lot for everybody in Langkawi.

Also if you're like in this far and you're wondering like how much does all this cost?

I put together a quick budget spreadsheet for this entire thing that laid out how much

all of it costs.

So like the TLDR of that is that this entire two months is like $6,500 for two people for

everything that I'm about to say.

But the breakdown of it and the details of it are in the description below in the link

down there.

Spreadsheets.

Yep.

Okay.

So moving on after we go from Bangkok to Penang to Langkawi, I think the next logical spot

is Singapore for seven days.

Which may or may not work because it sounded like you had us stop in Singapore at some

point maybe on the way to Bangkok or out of Bangkok.

But I think Singapore one week is definitely plenty of time to see Singapore.

It might be a little bit hectic.

Like when we go, I think we spend like four or five days and I feel like that's a good

amount so you can decide, yeah, that's something that's a little bit too long.

There are day trips that you can take out there.

In Singapore too, there are a couple of ferries that you can take out to some of the beaches

as well that are way more relaxed, super chill and not a lot there.

I mean, in fact, I think we had to pack a picnic to one of the beaches because there

was just nothing.

Yeah.

I mean, you for sure like you won't be bored in Singapore over seven days.

You'll have plenty of stuff to do.

It just depends on how long you can put up with all the heat and humidity that you're

going to deal with there.

I mean, I think the good news about Singapore too is there are tons and tons of malls scattered

throughout so like you can go and take a quick break into the mall, have some delicious

food at their food courts, have a beer or whatnot and then go back out into the world

and there's so much nighttime activity.

When Singapore wrapped up, then I think it is time to head to Vietnam and I think between

those two places, since you said that you're worried about the humidity and the heat and

the kind of craziness of it all, I think Hanoi and then Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh would

be like your perfect area.

They're all kind of right in the same rough area.

They're all a couple of hours bus right away from each other.

I look back on our trip and Northern Vietnam was I think my favorite part of the entire

trip.

Granted, we didn't spend a ton of time in Southern Vietnam, but I think just like the lushness

and the greenery and the history there.

There's something incredible about that area and the weather at that time really helped.

For sure.

Three, four nights in Hanoi, probably three nights in Hanoi would be plenty and then off

to Ha Long Bay for an overnight cruise and then down to Ninh Binh for like two more nights,

take a bus back up to Hanoi and fly out to our next destination, which is Hong Kong.

Would you put Hong Kong on that list?

I would definitely put Hong Kong on that list.

I don't know.

See, this is where we disagree.

There's so much fun stuff to do.

I mean, Hong Kong is really cool, but I don't know that I would stay a whole week there.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

Especially with all the day trips you can do to islands.

So this is like our first, we've been debating about this for a while.

I think my swap for Hong Kong would be Indonesia.

I see, I just like Bali, but why long it takes to get anywhere?

But does Hong Kong even count as Southeast Asia?

Yeah.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah?

Yeah?

Where is it?

But I do see your point.

You might be out there thinking like, hey, when are they going to put Bali in there?

Bali is a nice relaxing islandy destination, but I just, last time we were there, we went

to Ubud and that was amazing, Seminyak, Chengdu area felt really weird and super busy.

It's very, I mean, from what we understand, it's changed a lot.

I liked Hong Kong.

Don't get me wrong.

I just don't know that I would spend a whole week there.

I think I would.

I think I would.

I think there's a lot to do and I think especially after like the first two, two and a half days

of doing all the touristy stuff downtown, when you start like expanding further out into

the further reaches of Hong Kong is where I think it gets really good.

Like when we went and did that awesome boat trip to that island, that I think was my favorite

day in all of Hong Kong and there's like a lot more of that to be done.

That was our third day.

Sure.

Yeah.

So.

Okay.

Well, so my pitch would be like if, if we weren't doing Hong Kong, I think I'd go somewhere

else like Indonesia.

The Bali, I think might still be on that list.

I mean, while certain parts of Bali were very, very busy, I don't know, I would see other

parts of Bali.

I would go to other parts of Indonesia.

There's incredible nature, incredible temples around the entire country.

Just think it's a completely different, different experience.

Yeah.

I also think one of the things that I found most fascinating about Indonesia was just

like the differences between the different islands, right?

Maybe being one of them, the most popular and common one, and then the other islands

like Java.

Even though it might not be a place that's like the most familiar to Westerners, I think

it's an incredible and interesting place to visit.

See Heather, look at what you did to us.

Look at what you've done.

This was like our past four hours was honestly just this exact same thing, but with all these

destinations.

Yeah.

When you added Hong Kong, I was like, huh?

Okay.

So after that.

Okay.

I think the next spot, and this is a little bit of a curveball, this is a little bit of

a curveball, I think we would recommend that you go to Okinawa from there.

We?

See?

See?

Every time.

We've literally talked about this and she still disagrees.

She's still fighting this one, but also does that count as Southeast Asia?

I don't know, but it's pretty close.

It's pretty close and it makes sense with the next place that we're going after that.

But I think that this, I think Okinawa would be like the perfect spot to be able to get

like a taste of Japan is pretty affordable.

It's pretty cheap to get to from Hong Kong and it's like a very relaxing, awesome island

destination with a bunch of little island hopping to do around it after Hong Kong.

I think Heather, we need to know if you've been to Japan already.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you did say Southeast Asia and Okinawa is not Southeast Asia.

See?

It's the closest to the Southeast Asia that Japan gets.

We did add on the list, Taiwan.

Yeah.

I just, I mean, we're biased, but.

It's just an awesome place to go.

It's just an awesome place.

It's just so much good stuff.

And it's one of those places that I think is super underrated because I don't think

people think about visiting Taiwan, but I think it has incredible, incredible street

food, incredible history, incredible nature.

I mean, you can visit Taipei, the biggest city, which is really cool, really, really

metropolitan, easy to get around, but then like go 20 minutes, 30 minutes by train and

be at like a beach or a mountain town.

It's so cool.

It's so accessible, so affordable, a bit humid, depending on the time of year.

But this time of year is great.

It's like high of 70, low of like 55 or something.

It's great.

Yeah.

I find myself thinking like, wow, why didn't we go on more often as a kid?

I think after that, it's time to head back to Thailand.

So then we figured it'd probably be best to go to Kosemui for this like beautiful, beachy

destination.

You can ride a motorbike around it.

It's a little bit more relaxed pace of life.

And you also have Kofinyan and Kotao right next door.

Kotao, if you're into scuba diving.

Great place.

Totally go there.

There's also kind of the cusp of whale shark season there.

So it could be a very interesting time to go.

I would also like to say this is also a part where we may have argued a little bit.

I don't mean to be argumentative here or debate, but I like, there's just like one

part of me that needs to like smudge.

I know, we don't have enough time in this world is what we're learning.

We don't have enough time.

I love, I loved Kosemui and all the other islands, Kopipi, but I think like Chiangmai,

I can't go to Thailand and miss Chiangmai.

I would say you can't go to Thailand and miss Kosemui, you know, it's like such a different

side than Bangkok.

Chiangmai is so, I felt like it was such a special place because it's got the old town.

It's got the mountains you could home base in Chiangmai like we did.

And then like take trips up to Chiangdao, to Pai, to all these incredible mountain beautiful

places.

I think you'd be, I think you'd be, you wouldn't be making a mistake with either of them.

You know, like you wouldn't, you wouldn't be doing it wrong with either of them.

I think the nice way to end like a two month long trip in Southeast Asia is on a beach

with a motorbike.

You don't even like beaches.

Kind of not.

Yeah.

I just like to look at them.

I don't like to be on them.

There's nothing to do on the beach.

You know, you just like, it's just there and it's sandy and hot and there's nowhere

to hide from the sun.

It's just, it's nice to look at.

It's nice to look at.

Don't you want to interact with things?

I'm like going for a swim, but then coming back in, but then if I stay on the sun for

more than 10 minutes, I'm just immediately burned.

Like a lobster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's another vote for Chiangmai.

That's true.

That's true.

Except for that'll be right around the end of burning season.

Oh, that's true.

So it should be, well, maybe everything will be clear up by the time that you're there,

which is almost April or beginning of April.

Okay.

Those are our thoughts.

After that, take the next flight back to Bangkok and then fly out to wherever you're

going to next.

It sounds like this is maybe the end of your trip.

So that's awesome and crazy and also kind of a sad moment to finish up a trip like that.

But right.

And that's two months.

So in total, that was like $6,500 for two people all in to do that.

You can find the spreadsheet in our video description if you think it will be helpful.

Hopefully you take a look.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think if you're hearing that and that's like way too much money, I would probably cut

out Singapore as that was the most expensive out of, there's just no hotels during that

time of year for less than $100 a day.

And Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was also kind of expensive as well.

And I think the flight from Taipei to Kosa Mui was kind of expensive.

Sure.

And let us know what you guys end up deciding and doing because we'd love to hear where

you end up if it's Hong Kong or Chiang Mai.

Just kidding.

Okay.

But I think that this question kind of perfectly leads into the next one, which is talking

about a one-year trip and avoiding travel burnout.

What was this one about?

Yeah.

So yeah, our next question comes from Samantha Hall, 7180, who asks some really good question

and told us that they're working on a one-year sabbatical travel plan, but they're worried

about getting travel burnout or feeling a lack of purpose while traveling.

Have you ever felt like that on your long trips and what do you think of having a home

base versus long-term travel?

We've played with the idea of doing a month-to-month, month-on, month-off travel where we do one-month

trip and then come back and work for a month, but don't want to miss out on the full backpacker

experience either.

Oh, do I?

Yes.

We hear all of this and feel it so much.

Have we dealt with travel burnout?

Of course.

Definitely.

All the time.

Yeah.

And it comes in like clockwork.

Every two to three months, you just look at each other and you're like, what are we doing

out here?

I miss our home.

I miss our home.

I'm just tired.

I miss our cat.

We spent the past two days just watching Netflix inside and we're in Tokyo and I don't know

why we're here and what we're doing to solve our new...

You start taking things for granted that should never be taken for granted.

And maybe this is like...

We have to say all of this is a luxury that we even get to do any of this.

It's such a privilege that we even get to travel and then get to go on a whole year

trip.

And I think there in lies the issue though is sometimes, no matter what you're doing,

travel or not, it becomes normal.

The thing that used to be a luxury becomes normal.

The thing that you used to look forward to becomes normal.

So you just start to take it for granted.

I don't know if it...

I think it's like, did you ever feel like when you started your first job, you missed

being in school?

Oh, no, but I hated school.

Oh, okay.

Never mind.

I miss...

I hated school.

There were times when I missed summer break or I missed winter break or I missed studying

really hard for an exam and then being done with it and never having to think about that

class again.

There was something about that like built in schedule that I could look forward to something.

And then when I started my nine to five, yeah, it was great to start working and making a

real salary, but then I started to miss.

I just think that eventually the more you do something and the more normal it becomes,

you start to like take it for granted.

So I almost feel like it's better to have...

We loved full time traveling.

I wouldn't change our one year travel experience at all because I feel like I learned so much

not just about the world and you and myself, but just what things I enjoyed about life

and what parts of our lives that we wanted to keep holding onto and keep, which is why

we went from full time travel to now home base and travel.

But I think we had to go through that to get there.

I mean, you're about to embark on ostensibly a brand new life for a little while, right?

Like a full on change from whatever you were doing before to a fully new thing.

And I think to expect yourselves to not only be good at it at first, but also to be able

to just keep at it at a super hard pace over a long period of time is an unreasonable expectation.

And I've fallen into this trap before.

And I think that the key to it, at least that I've found over time is to just build in

breaks and to have grace for yourself to just stop for a little while and just do normal

life.

So whatever you'd normally do at home, just like build in time for a week to do that.

But what I would really caution against is heading home.

I think for me, there were a bunch of times, especially on my first trip when I was solo

and I was doing it by myself that I just wanted to go home, that I just wanted to quit.

But I'm so glad that I didn't.

I mean, I damn near died on that first trip, was homesick for like 40% of it.

It was rough.

But the only things that got me out of that were just the thought of that if I went back,

I would just be giving up on this thing that I tried so hard to get.

I'd spent years saving up the money just to be able to afford this one year sabbatical

that I was doing.

I had quit a job.

I had said goodbye to all my friends and family for a little while.

I had set aside this time in my life to do a thing for the first time in my entire life

that was just for me.

And that thought of just giving that up because I was feeling sad for a little while or because

I was feeling homesick to quit all of it was just impossible for me.

There was no way that that was going to be the end of that trip.

Yeah, I think a lot of it does come back to the reasons, I guess, why we travel.

And that will likely change, right?

When we started and when I think I asked you, do you want to just take a one year honeymoon?

I think my reasoning at the time wasn't because I was necessarily bored of my old life.

I loved our life.

I loved our friends.

I loved where we were living and I loved our apartment.

But I remember thinking like, there's so much in this world that I want to see 10 days is

never enough, 10 days a year is not enough.

And there was just this feeling like, if I don't do it now, when can I?

I can't take 10 days every single year, every single paycheck, getting one more day.

I can't wait.

There's so much in this world that I want to see.

And after this one year, I think part of how we luckily found purpose on our trip was YouTube,

right?

Making these videos, editing was another way that we kind of took some breaks from the

art and the practice of traveling and just sat down and worked on something that felt

larger than what we were doing.

Yeah, built something.

So that helped, I think, definitely having hobbies while on the road.

I think some of you have asked us this, what are things that you do when you travel?

You would play video games with your brothers.

You'd set aside time on the calendar to say every time, whatever time zone we're in, we're

going to find time to play video games.

I would schedule in phone calls with my friends or my family back at home.

I would dance.

So there were a lot of different ways that we could still keep connected and take little

breaks from traveling and make it feel a little bit more normal and routine.

But I think looking back on the whole year, I really don't know that.

I think what you're at to your point, you guys have been thinking about doing this one

year versus month on month off.

It's a really good question because now we're at the point where we're traveling but also

have a home base so we can go home.

But I don't think that we would have made that choice until we knew what full-time traveling

was going to look like.

Or if we didn't have our YouTube channel.

Yes, also that.

It's a lot.

And I think having a home base has really helped us be able to sustainably do this for years

now.

We're approaching year number four of doing full-ish time travel plus YouTube at the

same time.

So part of me that wonders what our year would have looked like, our actual one-year honeymoon

would have looked like had we not done the YouTube thing.

I still think a lot of it was pretty, in the beginning it started off really easy going.

We were just documenting our travels and editing them.

And that gave us purpose and that gave us something to do on the side, like a hobby.

As we have done it more and more, there's a part of me that wonders, huh, what would

have that one year, a year of nothing would have looked like because I do think there's

also-

Sounds pretty awesome.

It does.

Actually, it sounds pretty great.

And I do think there's something about working through the like, like sitting with the discomfort

of being homesick, missing home, not feeling like I have something to do or work towards.

I think we're so used to getting stimulation from every part of our lives, travel, social

media, you know, everything that sometimes there's something special also just about

sitting in the nothingness.

Yeah, like when I think back about the Josh that left on that first trip back in 2011,

the Josh that left on that first round of the world trip and then the Josh that came

home after a year were two fully different people, two totally different human beings

from when I departed to when I returned.

And I think that a lot of that change, some of it was good and some of it was bad, you

know, it was just a lot of life kind of condensed into one year.

I think a lot of that change came directly as a result of just having to confront all

of these difficulties exactly like what you're describing, some of which were boredom, some

of which were homesickness, some of which were just I had never been alone in my own

head for as many days straight as where they are and some of which was just a total lack

of direction and purpose that I had to confront and like up until that point, I had just been

kind of doing the game plan that everybody else in my life was telling me was the right

thing to do.

And then for the first time, I turned all that noise off and I just went out and traveled

forever and just started listening almost exclusively to what was going on in here.

And there was a lot more crazy going on in there than what I expected, but also a lot

of like truth and a lot of extremely clear opinions and like identities about what I

should be doing with the rest of my life.

And I would have never heard any of those ideas had I not also like suffered through

some of those very difficult alone times and some of those very difficult homesick times

and wrestled with like why am I homesick?

Why do I feel bad about this?

Why am I guilty?

Why am I on my dream trip but still feeling very sad?

Like why?

Like how can those two things coexist?

I've been fighting for this dream forever and now that I have it, some parts of it aren't

as great as I thought it would be and some parts of it are way better than I thought

it would be and all these little moments like at least that's how I felt is that had I gone

home, I would have just never figured any of that out and I would not have been able

to actually like turn off all the other noise and just listen for the first time to what

I actually wanted to what was going on in my head and actually confront all these little

problems and all these little things that were causing around it.

And I think I would have come home instead of a very different person, I would have come

home the exact same person that I left and that was not the point of the trip for me.

Those are our experiences and our thoughts, I mean I would say it's just, it is completely

normal to feel what you feel, traveling full time as glamorous as it is and as luxurious

as it is still comes with feelings and emotions, homesickness, lack of purpose, there are definitely

times in our travels where I think, ah, sometimes.

That's why we started this YouTube channel.

Sometimes I miss my old job, sometimes I miss having lots of coworkers, I miss having breaks,

I miss having lunch hour, all these different things and so I think part of what the beauty

of this, hopefully this sabbatical is figuring out, yeah, what you guys truly, truly enjoy

and what you don't and what kind of life, I don't know, that you want to lead.

I think that really was a surprising thing that came out of our trip for me.

I didn't know that I thought we were just going to go back home and work for our old

employers again, honestly.

I didn't know that out of this one year trip would come a whole new lifestyle of travel,

YouTube, building our own business and I mean I think, and then luckily in the last year

home base too.

I definitely think it's one of those things that's not for everybody, we know people who

still love traveling full time and who, or there are some people that have a home base

or just are back at their old jobs.

I mean I think there's so many different ways to experience travel and I think that's kind

of the coolest and beautiful thing about it.

That's the point of it is to be able to turn off all the outside noise for a little while

and just go see how other people live.

Yeah, just do the thing that exactly you want to do, whatever that thing is to be able to

do that.

And I think practically speaking, I think we talked about this and kind of got off track

a little bit, but I think practically speaking, helping to set in structure on your freedom,

I mean right, because it sounds so luxurious to have just a whole year of traveling, a

whole year of no work, a whole year of nothingness, but actually for people like me, I love

having purpose, I love having a routine, I love having structure, so there were times

where we just had to say okay, this is what our day is going to look like tomorrow.

And so it helped me to plan things in advance, to look forward to things, to have friends

and family come and visit on our trip, and to build in those breaks, build in those breaks,

like wake up, okay, we're going to have coffee this morning and then we're going to go sight

see or okay, today we're going to play video games, dance hula or talk with our friends.

Those little things definitely went a long way.

Yes, I really do hope that this was helpful in some way.

I know that a lot of this is kind of like hand wavy advice and it's not really tactical

because there isn't really like one-

Size fits all.

Yeah, there's not like one way to be like, how do I cure homesickness?

Well, it depends what was home like and how sick are you?

How do I avoid burnout?

A lot of it is just like going through it and realizing what caused it to begin with.

Understanding it.

Understanding it takes time and getting past it and the only way to do that is just to

confront it.

Why am I burned out?

I don't know.

I'm in another country.

But I feel like the whole world has been telling me that this is a place and a thing

that I should be having fun doing, but I'm not.

So I feel bad about that and I feel double bad about the fact that I'm like, tired on

this other side of the world when I should be on this crazy adventure that Instagram

has told me needs to be this nonstop fun thing from start to finish.

But in reality, has a whole bunch of different shades of emotions and fun and sometimes it's

not fun and sometimes it sucks and sometimes it's absolutely amazing and it's like a one-year

sabbatical, I think like you're about to do is just this condensing of like a decades

worth of stuff happening in your life all into one year and that means you're going

to have a lot more ups and a lot more downs and a lot more of everything that's going

to happen in this year and I think to like expect all of it to be amazing and to expect

none of it to have any downsides or any burnout or any difficulties along the way is just

it's unrealistic and I think it would be a kind of boring trip if it ended up that way

anyway. Yeah, it's definitely the thing that, you know, we don't even show in our three

days and X series, right? That like the things that go along with travel, but I think is

important to talk about and is important to, to face. I mean, yeah, we we've lost loved

ones, you know, on our trip, we've gotten sick, we've had other family members get sick,

you know, so there's a lot of things that happen in your course of travels that YouTubers

don't tell you or you don't see in the highlight reel and people think, you know, that you

should be having the time of your life. But I think more importantly, when you're traveling

is just to treat it like treat it like your normal life, respect the feelings and respect

the, respect the emotions and the feelings that come with it. Yes. And give yourself grace

and time to solve them and don't, don't feel like you need to keep moving if you're feeling

like you just want to lie flat on your face and watch a whole Netflix series for two days

or build spreadsheets or build spreadsheets. Okay, that is enough for this one. We have

rambled on long enough about travel burnout. So please, please leave more questions down

in the comments below. If you got them again, we are loving them that spreadsheet with all

the in depth costs and stuff is in the description below. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see

you next Thursday. Bye.