Living in your 20's

Living your 20’s

Somewhere someone at this current time while you reading this, clicking your mouse to scroll down, someone has turned 20. From all of us in our 20’s we welcome you to possibly the best years of your life.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us”

So the question that beckons, is how do I live the best years of my life? I am not some sort of Guru, or some life coach who can tell you how to live your life, but one thing I can advise is that one needs Travel on their bucket list.  I was fortunate it enough to travel to Europe in 2006 with my family to France, Belgium, Netherlands and England. At the time I thought that was the best experience of my life. That was true until I recently went on a trip to the beautiful city in Brazil called Rio De Janiero. 

There are no words in the Oxford dictionary that can describe my experience there of 7 weeks, but one thing I realised on my trip, is that it is something that has to be done by every young adult in their 20’s.

There seems to be a need to explore, sense of adventure, learning new languages and cultures in human beings which can be accomplished through travel. I am still yet to hear from a person or read an article of someone who learnt nothing from travel, whether it was good or bad. The point I am trying to make is that, in the end no matter your reasons for travel, it grows you as a person.

So at this point you might be saying that, I would love to travel but do not have money. You may be saying I make it sound so easy to travel, that you can just spin a little globe and wherever your finger lands you can just go there. I acknowledge that we come from different backgrounds, and therefore have different finances. That is the sad truth that we were all not born equal, that some have it easier than others. The only problem with that is we use it as an excuse to hold us back from doing what we really love and want to do.  In my opinion it’s a mindset us a humans have, and we should take something from what the great Bob Marley said that, “we need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery”.  

My personal opinion is that if you struggle more than the person next to you to reach the same goal, you the person that struggled, will feel more satisfaction. The more satisfied we are, the better we feel about our accomplishments and the happier we become. After all we are in pursuit of happiness are we not? The struggle in this context is the ability to save enough to go on that trip you have been yearning to embark on.

So what are the solutions so that we can travel? SAVE! No matter who you are and where you are from, anyone can save. What I do is that every month my bank automatically takes a portion of my allowance and I cannot stop it for 12 months, it almost forces me to save.

I have done this for the past 3 years and I can safely say I can afford to buy a return ticket to more than 70% of cities in the world. Depending on your financial status it may take you months or years to save up for that dream trip but in the end it would have been worth it.

There are countless opportunities that can make you earn your travel money back, if you are worried about the opportunity cost of travelling. There are organisations like Chilli adventures that allow you to travel and work, and you may even end up earning more than you paid for. There is a great organisation called Aiesec that allows you to travel abroad and change the world one way or another while experiencing a different country, and the best part is that accommodation is usually free (which is the most expensive cost in terms of travel).

Now to the good stuff. What does travelling bring?

Amongst the countless experiences I can mention, depending on your personality, you have an opportunity to make new friends, see beautiful places, learn new cultures, indulge in delicious food or not!, adventure and excitement are one of the hundreds of reasons why you need to travel in your 20’s

Another reason to travel in your 20’s is that, in our late 20’s whether we about to graduate or are committed to either our work or girlfriends/boyfriends until death do you apart, it becomes much easier to make excuses not to travel ie. To not live your 20’s.

So as we arrive to the end of this Blog, think when you hit your 30’s, do you really want to look back and regret not at least travelling once somewhere, so you can at least tell your grand kids a story or two. Again I say, we travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.