End of Year Reflections

 

It is the end of 2016 and we are now back in Australia for a visit.  We have been away from Australia since April 2015.  Yet in many ways it seems like we left only a week ago.

 

As is the custom at the end of the year, we have been reflecting on and reviewing the strange trip it has been since our retirement.  I stopped full time work in May 2013, Bob stopped in December of that year.  In those three and one half years we have traveled to 23 different countries, renovated two houses and sold one, became nomads with no fixed address and bought a boat on which we now live when not doing land travel.  Yes, what a strange trip it has been.

Each star represents where we spent at least one night outside Australia since May 2013

I must say we do not miss work at all.  I do sometimes wonder if this lifestyle is a bit too hedonistic. (Bob doesn’t seem to have this Puritanical guilt.)  But we have always been travelers, a driving force for us really.  Bob traveled extensively in the 70’s and 80’s, including doing the hippie trail overland from England to Australia, through many routes that are now closed to tourist.  Travel has always been a priority for me as well, spending saved up money on airfares instead of new cars or household goods, and indeed emigrating to a new country in my early 30’s. 

We reflected on how travel has changed over the last 30 to 40 years.  In the 70’s, it was a great Australian tradition for young people to take a year or so off to see the world.  When I first went overseas in 1978, I was totally blown away by the many Australians I met at youth hostels who had been traveling for nine months or more, when my one month independent European trip was viewed by my contemporaries as being quite adventurous.  Meeting those travelers opened up great possibilities for me.

The Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides - The Bible for travelers in the 70's

Australia’s isolation certainly played a role in the country’s youth becoming great travelers. (Australia was so far away from the ‘rest of the world’ that you better see as much as you could while you had the chance.)  But perhaps more importantly, Australians traveled because they could.  One could take a year off after university to see the world and travel on a shoestring (no university debt as higher education was free then in Australia).  One then could come back and easily get a job (unemployment was at record lows) with no adverse effect on one’s career.  This travel was not restricted to those who had gone to university.  Young adults could get a good paying and respected job after high school, save up money and then hit the road.  Society seemed to support and encourage this rite of passage as it broadened ones’ world view and demonstrated independence and resourcefulness; characteristics employers respected back then.

 

 In the US, travel for the young was and still seems to be largely restricted to the organised two week high school trip to Europe or the semester abroad.  Pressures of career and massive university debt seem to make all but the most fleeting travel impossible for most young Americans; to say nothing of the near impossibility for those with only a high school education.

The travel guides now seem to treat destinations as boxes to tick for bragging rights – Ten Best this, Most Luxurious that.  Travel seems to have become more an indulgence for the self-absorbed wealthy than a learning experience that should be open to the majority.  The very places that had attracted the backpacker in the 70’s for its uniqueness and authenticity have become sanitised and westernised and just another box for tourist to tick – 100 Places to go Before You Die.

On the positive side we see that travel is opening up for youth outside of the Western world.  Air Asia has made a tremendous difference in travel opportunities for young Asians.

So as we continue our travels into the next year of our retirement, embracing the bug that was planted in our 20’s, we apologise to and mourn for what the next generation may miss.  Our generation has not left the world a better place for the next.  We are keenly aware of the privilege and honour to live this lifestyle.  All I can say is keep open to possibilities; do not accept that the life society dictates is the only option open.