Last month I wrote about the weird side effects travel can have on your mind and your perspective. I’ve been thinking a bit more on the subject and the way travel irrevocably changes the way you look at the world.
One of the biggest and hardest side effects of traveling is what I call Restless Heart Syndrome. It consists of that gnawing, unshakeable feeling that no matter how good things are, there’s somewhere else you could or should be.
For example, as you read this I’m on a flight back home after 7 months on the road. I’m ecstatic! I can not WAIT to do normal people things like eat a real salad, visit my local library and hug the crap out of all my friends and family. It’s going to be wonderful… for awhile at least.
Inevitably it will happen. I’ll see an episode of No Reservations, or a billboard with a beach on it. I’ll innocently google some far off place and before you know it I’m knee deep into planning imaginary itineraries. If it’s really serious I might start pricing some plane tickets, just in case.
Even worse, I start daydreaming about my past travels, gazing nostalgically at old pictures on Flickr and sighing loudly. I’ll order Chinese food and think bitterly how it will never compare with the real and amazing chinese food I used to eat. I’ll go to the store and balk at paying $10 for a bottle of wine I could have had in Argentina for $2.50.
A part of me will always be a slave to the places I’ve been and long to go back for. I will always wake up craving banh mi, or longing for a rainy day in Bogota. In the back of my mind I will always be wandering the streets of London, retracing my footsteps through Kyoto or gazing at a glacier in Iceland. It’s not that whatever I’m doing at the moment is boring or undesirable, it’s just that all this other stuff has taken up residence in my head and will not be dislodged.
When I was in China I did nothing but crave cheese all day. In Argentina I was inundated with mozzarella but I would have given an arm for some authentic bao zi. I guarantee you when I get home I’m going to crave some juicy Argentinean steak like none other.
I can’t help it. The curse of the traveller, is that no matter how happy you are, at least a small part of you always wishes you were somewhere else. Your eyes open to the massive amount of possibilities in the world, and it’s hard to focus on just one. Many people who take off in search of adventure quickly realize that travel is not like a cold that you get out of your system, but like an addiction that simply grows and feeds on itself.
So I have a restless heart. I can live with that, I think. It keeps things interesting, that is for sure. But, between my various jaunts around the globe, I’m going to try a little bit harder to appreciate the here and now.
I can relate to everything you wrote… only, I’m still travelling, and feeling restless, as I’m travelling… the kind of feeling where, this trip won’t beat the next trip, or how can I make the next trip beat the last trip (a mixture of the both). Even though I crave some stability, I still want to keep moving – the list of places and things I want to do gets longer, and I’m beginning to see no end in sight, wondering how I’m going to fit it all in. Then there is a part of me that does want to eventually settle, but I’m beginning to think that I’ll never reach the point where that will ever happen. So, I guess I’ll just keep on going… Glad I’m not the only one feeling like this – friends back home just don’t understand how I feel, and it can sometimes make me feel disconnected from the rest of the world.
Wow, you put a name on my condition. Thanks for a good read. “Why am I so restless in one place?” on Google brought me here, haha.
wow–i am having this exact itch so bad..
i was in SE asia/australia about a year.. also did a 3 month eurotrip before that.. im back home 3 years+ already.. I opened a buisness 8 months ago.. i just feel like shutting the store-closing it- grabbing as much money as i can salvage and catch a flight back to SE asia.. maybe see new places like USA/south america.
Thank you so much for expressing EXACTLY how I (and obviously lots of other travellers) are feeling. At a point now where I’ve just moved and already look for new plane tickets…I’d just like to know whether the RHS slowly wears off with time when you’ve rambled around enough, or if you just have to decide to settle down somewhere…Oh well, best of luck to all of you, let’s just enjoy our curiousity while it lasts:)
Hi there, I’m new here and have been hopping through your posts, and this one sings to me! i lived on fuerteventura, down in the canary islands for 4 years & since i have been back, i have that niggling feeling that no matter how happy i am, i need to move around more! it’s always there in the back of my mind, only recently have i decided to travel more and see the world. it’s nice to know that this feeling is felt by others 🙂