Why you shouldn’t wait until retirement to travel?

Everyone has wanderlust, but after retirement. The mountains are calling us and we tell them we will be there after 20 years. We have jobs to run after, money to earn, houses to build, children to raise and weddings to attend. We will wait until we retire and then explore the world. Though all of these seem very realistic, here are 10 reasons why you shouldn’t wait until retirement to travel. May be we change your mind and hence your life as we move ahead. We believe to turn away from traveling is to turn away from life itself.

The joys of traveling are in walking through the cities, jumping from the skies, climbing mountains and trying out the sports. After retirement, who knows how many of our bones are still working, can we walk as much as we want and carry luggage around or not. Our access to places in terms of mobility may reduce by 50%, if we are not fit enough, or simply don’t have the kind of energy as we do now. Even corpses get carried around to their funeral. The joy of traveling is getting tired, sweating and walking your own path.

Time to get real and honest. Sure we travel to learn about culture and people, to be closer to nature, to grow spiritually and what not. But also let’s admit that plan our trips around the food we need to eat. Sightseeing is just the stuff you need to do between meals. Your body can accept a whole platter now. Once you retire, you might not be allowed to eat a million ingredients, and will have to carry more pills to eat than the food itself. Or else, what is the point of traveling if you are not eating the food of the places you visit and letting your diets go on a break. Let your tongue explore when it can.

Traveling is for learning. It will add to your experiences and help you collect stories. If you leave traveling for later, you won’t have enough pages left to fill. You will have too little mind space to accept everything that a travel experience will have to offer. The time to learn is now. You are a blank book ready to be filled with learning and insights. Our biographies won’t have enough space to do justice to our travel experiences once we retire.

The greater purpose that traveling serves is to help us grow on a personal level. To learn more about cultures, become more accepting, break stereotypes, educate ourselves through the lives of other people and ultimately to know ourselves. The older we grow, the less our mind is ready for personal growth, the less accepting it is too new ideas, and the less it will benefit from traveling. Traveling teaches you lessons for life. Once you are back, you are ready to work and deal with life, with a new and fresh perspective every single time.

Climate change is something we all should be worried about. Experts have pointed out the possibility of giraffes becoming extinct, snow disappearing from the earth, forests and lakes dying, corals and marine life coming to an end, and so much more. Like us, the earth seems to be dying as well. Thus, you should start traveling now, for two reasons. One a lot of nature might disappear by the time you retire. And two, traveling and spending time with nature is going to make us more grateful to our planet. We might be even more motivated to switch to Eco-friendly options when back home. May be, you and I, will save this world.

Humans have more than one ways to mess their lives up. We might save the planet, but who will save us from us. 28 countries are either at war or involved with arm conflict. It is sad how countries are attempting to ‘racial clean’ themselves. Countries are becoming less and less accepting. The human race is building more walls than bridges. By the time we retire, it might be a bigger mess and more complicated. Let’s travel now. Meet people across the world and love them, before political propaganda teach us to hate each other. Create a global community, before the walls push us apart. The localites platform is so refreshing, as we make friends in countries we are planning to travel, even before we visit them.

Though it might seem like you don’t have enough money now, traveling now is actually way cheaper. Alyne Tamir, traveled to 60 countries with her own savings even before she graduated from college. Traveling as an older person comes with an inability to adjust or compromise on certain standards of living. Also traveling gets cheaper every day, when platforms like localites.co let you earn from your hometown, and provide you with a community of hosts at affordable costs across the globe. There is not much scope for excuses to be real. Anyone who really wants to travel will find out a way to do it. The fun of traveling anyways is in exploring more streets and fancy rooms.

Ouch. This one hurts. But it is a possibility nevertheless. We leave traveling for retirement as we perceive it to be the ‘worry free’ phase of our life. We expect it to be full of money with no work whatsoever. That’s not always the case. Parents stay parents for longer than they expect. Responsibilities only increase with time, and you will have a share of piled up responsibilities once you retire. Our kids might not be independent at the same timeline as we expect them too, as they will have their own plan. We cannot leave our plans for later, as life might again find a way to come our way.

The only way to be cool when you are old, is to have a million stories of adventure to share. Post retirement doesn’t give you enough time and energy to create stories. You grow up to be a dope person, when you choose to travel and create stories when you can. Be life goals for the generation to follow. You might not understand the technology of the future, or know the references to the trending shows, but you sure will be the cool aunt who would have stories to share about the worlds beyond the screens of media.

To end with the most cliché note, but live each day like it’s your last (or at least some days). There is no way we can guarantee ourselves we will live that long. Life is uncertain and you don’t want to leave this world with a list of things you left for ‘later’. To live truly, is to die with as few regrets as possible. Get that bucket list out and beat it before life beats you.