Itchy Feet

Travel Forums General Talk Itchy Feet

1. Posted by danielle21 (Budding Member 64 posts) 15y Star this if you like it!

Hey,

So i went travelling for 11 months last year i left by myself and met new ppl along the way and made a couple of best friends one of whom i travelled with for 6months.

I have been home now for 3months initially i liked the comforts but nowi get more and more miserable by the week back in a steady job and living at home!!!

Guess my question is when should i go again? im worried because the longer i leave it the more my confidence i gained whilst i was away is going.

i know that i wouldnt have anywhere near the money i went with last year as i saved for 3 years for that but at the moment i just want to buy a one way ticket and work visa for NZ, should i shouldnt i??

how long have most ppl left it b4 going away again after a big trip?

2. Posted by bex76 (Moderator 5413 posts) 15y Star this if you like it!

I'd say go for it - get your visa for New Zealand and do your working holiday, you won't regret it. You never know what might happen in the future which could stop you going - you might get a job you don't want to give up, meet a long term partner etc, so I would go for it while you can.

As long as you have the requisite funds when you arrive in NZ and have enough to keep you going until you get a job, you should be fine so I wouldn't worry about not having much saved. Although the economy is not that great here (like everywhere else) you should be able to pick up work.

I felt the same as you before I went to NZ - one day after a bad day at work I walked down to the travel agents and booked my ticket to NZ - and I never looked back! (am still here 4 years later :) ).

[ Edit: Edited on 13-Mar-2009, at 14:16 by bex76 ]

3. Posted by 7055 (Budding Member 28 posts) 15y Star this if you like it!

Don't forget about Australia, as a British resident you can acquire a working holiday visa online, it takes around 3 days. New Zealand is fantastic to travel but you're honestly better of living somewhere like Melbourne. The Australian dollar is worth much more and plus you actually get paid more per hour - expect to earn around 20 dollars per hour for low-skilled office job. This means you can save up and travel around asia quite comfortably, especially since Air asia started operating flights to Kuala Lumpur for unreal prices (I just booked Melbourne to KL for a 70 quid). Plus, Melbourne is quite simply a beautiful city to live ;)

4. Posted by Cool Paul (Respected Member 611 posts) 15y Star this if you like it!

I feel your pain, I've been home for 3 months and it get's worse everyday. I realize that I've just spent too much of my life in this city. maybe you just need to change cities in your own country. try out your newly acquired social skills in your home country!

5. Posted by jadeverell (Respected Member 255 posts) 15y Star this if you like it!

Hi,

I was like you.....3 years ago i went travelling for a 3 month 'taster' around Asia. My girlfriend didn't want to go at the time as she was still at Uni so i went on my own for 3 months and loved every day of it!!
Last June, my girlfriend and I set off for a RTW together and we are currently half way around and I am already getting nervous about going home as i can remember what the 'Post Travel Depression' was like last time and it sucks balls! You try so hard not to slide back into the 9-5 lifestyle but it is so hard not too. You get a job to get through day to day life and before you know it you have been there for 4 months and every day seems the same.

I will always have itchy feet, but have come to terms with that i have to go home some time and start my life with the girl that i love and eventually bring up a family. Now it all depends where you want to do it. I would quite easily live out in Oz (where i am at the moment), but my girlfriend says she is a home bird and wants to be around her family and friends, which is perfectly understandable.

If you are reasonably young, then i would say go for it. Travel, and work for a year. But you will have to realise that you will have to go home at some stage for obvious reason such a lack of finances that wont allow you to travel every other 6 months.

I have made a deal with my girlfriend and said that if i do go home rather than starting my life in Oz, that we never go on a 1-2 week package holiday to spain etc but instead take 3 weeks away to somewhere we have never been before, so that it cures my travel cravings.

I tend to class people as either a traveller or a homebird and if you are like me you will always have that urge to want to see new places, Its how you manage those urges with the real world that matters.

It is especially hard at the moment, as one of the reason why i dont want to go home is because of the piss poor state the country (Uk) is in at the moment, but that's a different topic all together.

I strongly believe that if you enjoy your job it doesn’t matter to much where you are. Before I left I hated my job, doing IT and sitting in front on a PC for 7 hours. Being away has given me the time to really think about what I want to do with my life. I have decided that I want to go back to uni and enhance my education so that I can change career into something that I would actually enjoy doing, which in this case is teaching.

JD

6. Posted by kody (Respected Member 234 posts) 15y Star this if you like it!

I hear you jadeverell & same goes to the rest of you.

I'm now in such a situation where I'm really looking forward to head home. Like Jadeverell said, "... eventually bring up a family" and so on...
I've quit my 9-5 job 4.5 years ago to come to UK with my then gf (wife). We are from Malaysia and always love to travel and experience life abroad. Unfortunately, the moment we touched down in the UK it's always about paying bills, taxes, rentals, food to survive... and in reality we got back in to 9-5 job and the only different is we now work and live in a different country with a different environment.

We are not that lucky to have able to RTW trip for months, but we do manage to squeez in a few weeks here and there, and manage to do quite a number of trips around Europe, States, & South America. However, it's always the 9-5 thingy that get most of us tied-down. When you got a job (career prospect) you're afraid of letting go, coz' given today's credit crunch situation everyone's glad to have a job hangin' there... which now a dilemma to me.

However recently, I looked at my self and found out that I've worked hard and non stop for the past 10 yrs! Besides earning enough to pay taxes & other forms of bills in my daily routine life, I really need to overhaul my life. I'm tired of the rat race (even I win it, I'm still a rat!!!) Finally I've come to a conclusion that, to be fair to my wife and family members, I'll have to go home for good and to be with them... but of course, this round I won't be heading home and rush to settle for a 9-5 job just like what happenend to me 4.5 yrs ago... come this year end, I will probably take a year off, just to do a shoestring backpacking trip or some voluntary works with my wife around South America, Centra America, States, and some part of SEA... I'm having itchy feet now :)
However, it's always the fear of 'Post Travel Depression' later when it ends... sigh... ;)

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