How Travel CAN Change your Life | The Traveling Mindset

have you ever met a true traveler someone who's interesting and they've traveled the world and you know maybe they've hiked the greatest trails in the world or they've been on the greatest train Journeys and and you look at them and you think could I do that too I know and these are not people on vacation these are people on a journey you know they fill their hearts and Minds with experiences and they come in all ages they may be old they may be young or somewhere in between yeah in today's video we want to talk about the traveler you know what does it take to be a real traveler and and what can it do for your life more importantly how can it reset your life even if you're in retirement um you know what does a travel do to you what has it done for us and how has it changed our lives it has completely changed our lives so let's find out more we're John and Beth and we are the retirement Travelers if you're just joining us we are traveling the world in retirement and we are currently in Asia we are writing blogs and making videos so be sure you head over to our website retirementtravelers.com and be sure you sign up for our newsletter so before we get started let's talk about some of the misconceptions about World Travel one of the first misconceptions is that you have to be rich to travel the world yes that's definitely a misconception because as we've traveled the past three years we have seen so many other fellow Travelers that are really traveling on a shoestring budget I mean we know people that are traveling the world full-time for thirty thousand dollars a year and that doesn't mean you're not going to get great experiences we personally have visited probably 15 wonderful countries that are all low cost Yeah we actually love the low-cost countries I mean you get them real experience and it's not touristy I mean once a place is a tourist spot it the costs go way up but we have been to countries like Guatemala and Albania and you know Bulgaria and Romania and now we're over here in Asia and Vietnam and Cambodia and Lao these are wonderful places and you get a real travel experience in these places so you do not need a lot of money to do this the number two misconception is you have to have a partner to do this with now I I like having my partner to do this with but we have seen plenty of solo travelers all over the world yeah especially women I mean women are the largest segment of solo Travelers and people are surprised by this but the statistics are showing that women Travelers are out there doing it now we have met Travelers that are women who are on all on their own completely on their own young girls older women it doesn't matter but we've also met women who are joining together through groups there are Facebook groups there are different agencies I guess that will match you up with a partner to travel with if you want to but don't be you know oh I can't do it because I don't have a partner to do it with maybe your husband doesn't want to travel but Join one of these groups and find someone to do it with or maybe you're single that's right where there's options where there's a will there's a way so go travel the world third misconception is that you have to be on a guided tour yeah I would say 80 or 9 90 percent of our travels is not on a guided tour I mean we will occasionally do a cruise or places that are hard to get to but it's kind of fun planning your own trip and and customizing it to exactly what you want to do yeah you can go to our website and you can see some of our blogs if you want to go to a country and you can see exactly what to do in these places that we've been we're trying to do that as we travel to share our journey with you so it can help you but a DIY travel experience is really rewarding and it's not that hard I think a lot of people wonder oh what would I do how do I get there let me tell you it is no different than traveling in the state you live in to the next state or across the country or going to Vegas or going to New York City or going to one of these places yeah I saw I saw a stat one time that if you do it yourself first as a guided tour it's about I think two and a half times more expensive so you could go on a two and a half week trip for the same price as roughly a one week guided to trip just kind of ballpark numbers but I'd rather go for a longer trip yeah me too the fourth misconception is just a few great places to really go to yeah we kind of get in this rut As Americans and we've done it ourselves in thinking we have to go to Rome and we have to go to Venice and we have to go to Santorini and we have to go you know all of these places now that we've been on the road we can with 100 accuracy tell you these places are all wonderful and you should go to them but there's so many more places in the world yeah what we've found is if you see a bunch of other American tourists there the price is probably going to be triple what it is in other places now we we spent three months in the Balkans last summer we had some amazing experiences in Romania Bulgaria and we had just as much fun for probably a third to cost as we did going to Roman Venice yeah we really did I mean I think back in just hearing you say those words it made me like have this warm feeling in my heart thinking about Bulgaria and thinking about Serbia I mean Serbia who goes to Serbia but we had a great time there so expand your horizons and think you know the world's a big big place and even if you know you can only go to 10 places in the world pick places that are not the tourist Mecca and you will have a fabulous trip and if you still have Rome on your sites or Florence you know stay outside the city an hour and take take the train in and go spend a couple days like that you'll reduce your costs and still get to see you know some of the great sites of the world so let's talk about the things that you do need if you want to be a world traveler and the first thing you need is a can-do attitude yeah that's probably the most important thing now you know we didn't grow up or live our lives traveling all the time you know we traveled some with work and we traveled some with the kids but there was a lot we did not know yeah we learned as we went um we read we studied but you know part of it is just doing it I think some people say to us I don't know how you got The Bravery to do this and we're like What bravery did we have we just showed up and we arrived at an airport and we said okay what's next you know it's probably the same as you know riding a bike or surfing or golfing or whatever the first time you try something new it's it's difficult and it's scary and you have a hard time the same with traveling but as we travel more and more you know we're getting more and more comfortable all the time so we would encourage you you know have that can do attitude and just go out and plan a trip and go for it number two is you need to have the ability to keep your fears in Check Yes being fearful and being careful are two different things I think for us we started off our world travels being a little too fearful and uh it certainly helped us to be careful but we have really never been in a situation where we were unsafe yeah I don't think so I mean the only thing that uh when we were in Panama at one time the bus dropped us off at the wrong place and it was not the greatest neighborhood and we actually had one of the local ladies said don't go down that street because there's a lot of crime there so we walked the other way and so a local person helped us out and we have had local people help us yes if you look at the ratio of good people to bad people it's like 9999 to one I mean rarely ever have we encountered bad people around the world the third thing you need is the desire to learn yes what an opportunity to learn Amy just to get around you need to want to learn how to how to buy bus tickets how to get on the Metro you know in some countries that don't speak your language just finding your hotel can be an adventure sometimes yes definitely for us so there's just so much opportunity I mean you learn about geography and cultures and you know amazing stuff around around the world yeah museums uh just everywhere you go there's a learning opportunity and we never are you know we it never ceases to amaze us is that how little we know before we get there I know and how much we learn while we're there I mean one week in a country or a city and doing the the the local things and talking to people it's it's amazing how it truly shrinks the world the places that seem so far away are now you know always on our mind and and we've seen them and experienced them the fourth thing is you really need to be a person that takes adversity and then moves on from it yes because no one is going to do it perfectly it doesn't matter how much we know about something or whether we've even been to a place before we sometimes come up against a wall and we're like okay this didn't go like we wanted or you know I remember us trying to get into Costa Rica we had a plane ticket to get in and we were going to take the bus out but we had to buy another ticket at the airport they said you have to have an exit flight if you're going to fly in things like that happen and you just have to learn to let it go and move on uh you're gonna miss a flight you're going to miss a bus you're gonna things are gonna happen you're not gonna have money at the uh when you pay for your visa and you're gonna have to run back over to the ATM there's just going to be things that happen and you're just better off just to let those things go and move on yeah I think the official count where there's not an official count but the number of mistakes that we've made in the last three years is probably you know three or four hundred okay we have made lots of little mistakes but everyone we've learned from so we'd like to think we're making less and less all the time but you know what every new country you go into offers a new challenge you know whether it's you know what the roles are around getting a Visa or what the currency is or you name it there's always something new to learn so let's talk about travel and how it's impacted us and what have we learned from traveling how has it changed us you know the first thing really has nothing to do with travel uh it's about we could live without all of our stuff now we recently did a video called a life without stuff where we kind of you know chronicled our journey of downsizing and getting rid of all of our stuff and what has kind of surprised us is we have not missed it one bit you know it has completely changed our Focus uh more toward travel experiences and memories instead of stuff I think the next thing that we have done in this whole process is we've become more reflective and not so reactive but more reflective about our life you know we thought back about how we got here about our childhoods we've talked about our family more we've we've it's just helped us to come to the point in our life where we see the the things that have gotten us down the road and and how they've we've come here and that's been a really good introspective part of our journey the next thing that World Travel has done it is it has shrunk the world to us you know we we no longer think about far away places like Cambodia as as around the world now it's just another place that we have visited and and it's some place that we know you know when we started our retirement Journey we thought only about you know living in Florida or or which state were you going to live in now the the world is our retirement uh home playground I mean we we feel like we could go and live anywhere we could go travel anywhere uh it's expanded it beyond the United States so you know World Travel helps you shrink the world and you realize it's a big place but also it's all within your grasp thing this has taught us is the bond that we have is a strong bond we always knew that we were a good team but this has bonded us we've had to learn to count on each other to you know give the other one a little space and and figures a problem out or or solve something or get us somewhere and I don't know it's just felt like it's been a good thing for us as a in a marriage it's caused us to you know go together as a team and solve problems together and work our way through things yeah I mean I think you would think that spinning 365 uh days together you know 24 7 you know could have some pitfalls but actually it's been wonderful and I I definitely think our marriage is stronger now than even before and it was good before it's reinforced for us that connections matter and that we're really in charge of driving those connections I mean when we travel the world we go out of our way you know to meet new people to make new contacts um we've stayed with people all over the world we we hear from people online some of our viewers we we meet fellow Travelers uh we actually keep a notebook of all the people that we've met so that we can stay in touch I mean it's opened up a whole new world of friendships and and knowledge from other people that have just been wonderful yeah and it's even the little things it's then you know offering to take someone's picture I've taken pictures around the world uh just by saying hey can I help you with would you like a picture together because you see someone trying to take a picture of their their partner in and they just can't quite get that selfie and can I help you that's been the thing or we speak to someone we say hello where are you from and and the more we give of ourselves as we travel the more we get back yeah we've been added a number of people to go to dinner with us many of them half our age but it's kind of you know we like to hang out with young people old people you get a different perspective and flavor uh uh from all different ages so we just love meeting new people around the world so one of the biggest things that has changed for us is the trajectory of our life and the direction that we're taking our life everything about our life has changed how we look at the world how we interact with the world how we journey how we reflect I mean just every single thing that's right the last three years of travel we've probably learned more than the other 30 years of our life okay okay it's a little more than that but we have learned so much these last three years it has changed our perspectives it's changed our needs it's changed our you know how much we've learned our once we are going to have a better retirement because of our experiences you know these last three years and it's just going to keep getting better because we're not stopping we're going to continue to travel and continue to be open for what the world has to teach us on who we're going to meet it's it's exciting for it it is yeah but travel can do that for you too so you know be brave be bold figure out a way to get around the world and and you know go off on an adventure it can just make your life rich and full and exciting yes and of course follow along watch our videos check out our website drop us a note if you got a question we'd love to hear from you you know we we want to help you be the best World Travelers you can be yeah we'll see you next week be sure to hit subscribe and follow along on our retirement Journey around the world

Channel: Retirement Travelers

Views: 25,678

Keywords: travel inspiration, solo travel, how traveling changed my life, how travel changes you, travel vlog 2023, solo travel women, traveling mindset, travel mindset, travel learning, travel motivation, how to travel the world, retirement, retirement travel, how travel can change your life, lessons learned, travel lessons, travel 2024, full time travel, full-time travel, travel goals, retirement travelers, retire early and travel, how to travel, travelers to follow

Id: 53wgJNU4oME

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023