Today is a beautiful sunny day, I am enjoying my holiday sitting on my balcony. I am in love with European culture whether it is work-life or travel but this thing just pops up in my mind. This is a long weekend here just like the previous one. When this weekend was coming, I was just thinking of making a travel plan because everyone else was making it. Has it ever happened to you too? Has travel in Europe become a pressure nowadays? Let’s discuss.
How a travel lover can feel a compulsion to travel?
1. Crowded places
Yes, I am a travel lover and I have traveled a lot to a variety of places including treks, dessert, etc. But after I started traveling in Europe, this passion inside me is decreasing especially after my last trip to Amsterdam. I have also written a post about this on my Instagram as well. On this Amsterdam trip, I visited beautiful spots on my itinerary but they were so crowded that it was feeling nothing like relaxation. I am the kind of person who is not fond of a lot of crowds. And these spots I am talking about are not in the city man, they are on the outskirts.
2. Everyone around is traveling
Yes, one thing is true we visited these spots during a public holiday. This can be a reason. But after I visited one park here in Berlin with cherry blossoms, I kind of realized that I was not wrong about the travel experience. European cities are extremely crowded in the summers and especially during public holidays. Everybody else is traveling during this time. We did not visit Norway in summer and not during the public holiday, so the experience regarding relaxation was good. Despite these conclusions, my mind was constantly thinking of making trips. I was feeling pressured, you know. When you hear your friends making travel plans, your colleagues making travel plans and you see their pictures on Instagram, then it is quite normal to think like that. And I was feeling this need to travel even when I was not feeling well in terms of my health. But do you guys think that you should travel just because everyone else is doing it?
3. Accessibility to multiple countries
I have lived in the US for more than two years and I have never seen people traveling so much. I do not know but maybe I was surrounded by such people. But the places were also not heavily crowded too. Do you think that accessibility to multiple countries is why European people travel more? I kind of think this is a reason that I feel like this about travel in Europe. I have talked to some people here and a lot of people believe in having lots of different country flags on their Instagram profiles. Yes, this can be a good factor to bring more travel enthusiasts to your profile. But does so much travel for people who only travel part-time like after their full-time jobs during weekends relaxing? Doesn’t it hurt the original purpose of travel? which is leisure.
And this advantage of accessibility creates a thought in mind that maybe this is my only chance to see different countries. Maybe it would not be possible on the next holiday.
4. Summer season
Winters whether in Europe or in other foreign countries are quite long and cold. So people mostly avoid traveling in the winter season and this leave Summers extremely crowded. But what about autumn or spring season. We traveled to Norway in March and it was not too cold to avoid us from doing any activity. But when summer is here and the public holidays come then you end up making travel plans instead of those thoughts.
5. More holidays
I am not saying that other countries have fewer public holidays. But one thing I can definitely say about Germany is that holidays are holidays here and not like people doing extra shifts to make more money. Even people here get less salaries than in some countries like the US. But still, they prefer to take day-offs and give relaxation a priority. But is traveling with itineraries after working your ass off a relaxation?
6. The 9 Euro Ticket
If you are not aware of the new ticket price of trains in Germany, then let me introduce you to this concept. So the government here has reduced the price of the transport ticket from 80 Euros/ month to 9 Euros for three months in Germany. This reduced fare does not apply to the IC or ICE trains but to the regional and local ones. Still, it is a great deal. People are traveling here like crazy. These regional trains are crowded like hell. I saw one such train recently when I was going for some shopping and there was no space just like the Delhi metro Monday morning rides if you can relate
7. Corona
After being stuck at home for about two years, there is this new uncertainty that may be there can be a ban on travel again. So people are not leaving any chance to travel and this is an important reason too. But I just think that travel in Europe is not cheap here in any sense. So you are spending your hard-earned money, making your bodies exhausted just because you cannot stay at home and relax or your Instagram profile would be missing some pictures. And I always do some research always on my articles and found this below link when I realized that I am not the only one to feel like this:-
So all these things just came up to my mind and I thought that maybe people even after seeing my Instagram profile would probably assume that I am enjoying my life. But nowadays I am kind of moving towards this thought that you can enjoy even being at the same place the whole year or your whole life. And it may also happen that you are visiting these beautiful spots in different countries and still feeling exhausted. Happiness comes from within. If you are happy traveling then do that but if you are feeling exhausted while traveling then do not travel just because everyone else is. I was talking to my father about making a trip to Germany and he has never replied with a yes in the last six months. His reply is always “‘beta, you can come here” but I do not want to visit Germany or any other country.
Am I leaving traveling now?
No, I would not say that I will stop traveling and exploring. But I just want to feel that I am thrilled about travel not pressured. If my body and my mind want to do something else then I would like to explore it. But one thing is certain I would not stop exploring. Sharing these thoughts with you guys is a kind of exploration for me, it is kind of discovering myself more and more. So do not worry, I would not stop exploring and if that exploration needs me to travel at any point in time, then I would travel too.
Travel is great to explore different places and to explore new cultures and discover a new you but just remember to take a breath of relief and make sure that you are actually enjoying it. Fuck those itineraries and go missing.
Feel free to comment and share you guys if you like this article.
Read about my recent experience of Amsterdam here:-
https://www.theexplorerdiary.com/planning-a-trip-to-amsterdam/(opens in a new tab)
If you really enjoying travelling then it is a leisure but if you are doing just to impress others then I think it is just a compulsion.
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