The only thing that's made me happy recently is travelling to exciting places and having 'adventures'. Nothing too crazy/dangerous, but just something that distracts me from normal life enough to make me feel like I'm actually living, rather than just getting by. There are just a couple of problems at the moment:
1) I'm trying to work towards a 'real job' right now, so I don't have much time/money. This summer might be my last chance in a while for prolonged travelling, so I want to make the most of it even if I am poor. Does anyone have any travel inspo for a good budget 'adventure'? I'm in the UK, and will probably have about 500 pounds I can spend on this.
2) Where to find likeminded friends? Part of the reason I feel so eager to escape from everyday life is because none of my friends have this same sort of interest. They just want to get drunk on Friday/Saturday nights, watch sports all weekend, and spend the rest of the week working. I think I'd be much happier if I could go out camping/hiking with some good friends on weekends, but I don't know where to find that sort of outdoorsy friend. Maybe it's just because the UK is way overpopulated and there's not many good spots to go camping.
Also forgot to say - if anyone's interested in posting about their budget adventures in general (i.e. not specific to UK/Europe), I'd be interested in reading about it. I try to learn from anybody who lives the sort of life I want to live.
I wanna just drive around and travel the world.
>>1059497
>Where to find likeminded friends
I fucking wish I knew. Me and my ex spent at least 3 months every year for the past 4 years hiking through the Himalays, backpacking through S America or island-hopping in Thailand and now we've split up Ican't for the life of me find someone to replace her. That's the one fucking thing I miss.
>>1059692
It seems like it's the new fad for girls to say that they love travelling, but from what I've seen the majority of them have a pretty generic definition of it (e.g. go on holiday for a few weeks, take in a few cities). And I don't mean to come across like a le edgy traveller when I say that. I like a certain degree of comfort when travelling, probably more than a lot of the more experienced travellers her on /trv/. I just find that people who like to live that adventure-seeking lifestyle are pretty rare.
>>1059729
>It seems like it's the new fad for girls to say that they love travelling, but from what I've seen the majority of them have a pretty generic definition of it
Holy shit, this so much.
>>1059497
1) Sounds silly, but just do it. Traveling is amazing, but often people worry too much about the how and never end up doing much at all. Just get out there anyway you can and do it. If you have a car/van you can sleep in, go take a road trip.
2) Normal people are a bummer, but you are not going to find hiking/camping people in a club or sports ball game. Best way to meet people is to get out there doing what you love. All the active people are out being active. Got to be active to find the active people. It helps immensely to have at least one other person with you so you dont seem like THAT guy solo camping looking bored as fuck.
>>1059498
Story Time 1/5
Backstory- American- Early 20s- Decent paying seasonal work.
A buddy and I saved our pennies all summer working a shitty minimum wage job. With maaaaybe $500 each, we climbed on our janky dumb motorcycles and headed east for a buddies house. We hit up every free camp ground we could find, used CouchSurfer, we would stop in coffee shops to charge our phones and ask locals where was safe place to sleep. Even had a weirdo in the mountains of west Virginia insist we sleep in his yard, that was a real questionable night. The trip took us 5 days and we had a ball.
>>1059498
Story Time 2/5
Once at our buddies house, we realized our bikes were not going to make it back. They werent really ready when we left and all the abuse of getting there took their tool. I had to get back for up coming work, so We combined our left our money and decided to buy the first $500 vehicle we could find that would carry two motorcycles. We ended up going slightly over our goal, but found this 91 Astro van for $600 and snagged it.
We drove the van back, sleeping in the back with the motorcycles and gear. Had a blast, laughed the whole way just praying it was going to make it.
>>1059498
Story Time 3/5
Once back and back to work, I paid my buddy his share of the van back and decided to keep it for a bit longer. It was a real good runner for the price and doubled as a pretty good home. Once my seasonal work dried up, I decided to try van life. I build a little setup in the back and kept traveling
Paying for gas was cheaper then paying for rent, and I finally had a way to visit more of my long distance friends. This van became my life.
>>1059498
Story Time 4/5
Fast forward a year. I have been driving around solo, visiting friends. Camping/hiking and generally being a dork. Got real broke there for a minute while waiting for work to come up again. Was eating real real cheap and not driving too far. I was hanging around some of my motorcycle friends up in michigan killing time and waiting for work when I got to know this girl a bit better. She rides, shes rad, pretty cute and super fun. Work comes and go and suddenly she wants to come with.
>>1059498
Story Time 5/5
We do a couple cross country trips together and hit it off. Girl is now full on girlfriend. We still have to stop to work for a couple months here and there to pay for all the traveling, but we have been together for over a year now, just living the van life.
This story isnt for the sake of me bragging. This story is to drive home the point of just going for it. The past 3 years of my life have been one non-stop adventure that just keeps getting better. All of which started with a stupid motorcycle trip that any normal person would have dismissed as dumb.
Our dumb choices led to this $600 van that has taken me 40,000 miles, through 30 different states. I know 'Just do it' might seem like questionable advice, but the first step is the hardest. Everything from there is uphill.
>>1059857
>>1059729
Eh, hasn't been my experience.
Of the last 4 girls I've spoken to about travelling their most recent trips were
>Hiking in the Nepali Himalayas.. She's now planning a live-aboard diving holiday through Indonesia
>Volunteering in a Thai street dog clinic for 6 weeks then beachbummming through the islands with her bf. This couple's planning another trip to SE Asia, doing the standard 2nd time in SE Asia 'not yet a RealTraveller but not quite just tourist either' holiday with more obscure islands and villages.
> 5* sunbathing and poolside margherita holiday in some fucking Pacific resort island. I'd zoned out by then.
>Study abroad for a year in Amsterdam with lots of side trips to basically try and see every single piece of artwork from the Tate to the Hermitage. She's planning either a culture holiday in Japan or a return to Europe to check out the places she didn't spend enough time (Moorish Spain and E Europe)
They're all pretty distinct trips, nothing super obscure but I haven't met any guys going off to spend their holidays with Mongolian goat herders either. Hell, last year I hooked up with an Israeli chick who'd solotravelled overland from Egypt to Joburg. I don't care if you've spent a couple of years in the army, travelling via motorbike through CAR and Zimbabwe as a 5ft white-looking girl on a motorbike is pretty fucking hardcore.
>>1059498
I'm from a poor family in Sweden, never went abroad with my parents and didn't plan to ever leave the country until I reached my 20s. Got to know a lot of Asian people in uni, got a bit of yellow fever and realized after I got my first job that I'll never be happy until I go try living abroad.
I have a decent education and working has been what brings me to new places. I just left my job in the UK after a year here and I'm hoping to go to China for a new job after the holidays. Before this I've been in Korea and Japan both studying and working. It's been both ups and downs but I doubt staying in Sweden ever would have made me happy.
>likeminded friends
Something that more or less is sacrificed living this way. I have some natives in every place that I keep in contact with. Occasionally I meet expats but by standard they are just horny dogs that would do anything to get drunk and laid. Not that I'm much better, but friends without any trust isn't really worth the time.
also
>>1059729
>go on holiday for a few weeks, take in a few cities
People do what they can do to get around. It's really unfair to judge people just because they cannot immerse themselves in the local culture the same way you can.
OP,
1) has been addressed pretty well so...
2) I still haven't. I grew up in a massive city so my network is huge and I still don't have friends who travel. My best friends all just go out and get wasted. I join them whenever I'm visiting but it's also why I spend most of the year somewhere else/with friends who are more like me.
I'm doing seasonal work in Cali right now living with a bunch of people I met 4 years ago who are the complete opposites of my friends back home. I love both groups but my travel friends are a lot more like me. The hard thing is that the closer I am to some friends, the further I am to the others. It's gotten to a point where I travel for most of the year and I've stopped going to places and ahve been travelling for people. It's been fucking great, though.
You'll likely meet people who travel while travelling. It's the catch 22, unfortunately. I have yet to meet someone from my home city who is like me. I'm sure they're out there but I've literally made it my lifestyle and for a lot of people a 2 week vacation to a beach is enough for them.
>>1060948
Thanks for the story man, I enjoyed reading it. Sounds like you had (and are having) a blast. The only thing I will say is that that trip is more difficult where I live, in the UK. We don't have lots of wide open spaces or that culture of camping that make road trips like yours so appealing, which is one of the reasons I don't like living here.
>>1061037
Yeah I don't mean to say that there aren't girls out there who genuinely love travelling, or even that I'm not quite a bit of a tourist at times. I just think it's getting more common for girls to take a two-week holiday in the med and tell everyone how much she loves travelling.
>>1061055
I don't mean to sound snobby, I just draw a distinction between travelling and going on holiday. I've done both, and enjoyed both.
Do you plan to stay in Asia?
>>1061102
I think it's much more common for people in Europe to travel to different countries than it is for people in the States. Just because of the geography, I could quite easily visit five very different cultures in a day, and you guys don't have that luxury.
That said, I got the impression that it was much more common for groups of friends in the States to just go off camping for a weekend or something like that, which is something I really want to do here, but struggle to find people to go with. So I guess both places have their advantages/disadvantages.
>>1061508
>I just think it's getting more common for girls to take a two-week holiday in the med and tell everyone how much she loves travelling.
You're hanging around the wrong people.
There's clubs and societies for hiking - join one. You'll do casual weekend things in the uk with them, and meet people you also do more hardcore travelling stuff. I joined my unis hiking society to walk up Snowdon, 2 years later I've been on 5 hiking trips in other countries mountains.
>>1059498
Sure I'll post my summer. Nothing too extreme but I enjoyed it.
Summer holiday from uni and I figured spending much of it in my little bumfuck town in the Midlands would make me go mad. Haven't been around much of the UK and I've lived here long enough, so figured fuck it.
Figured out which people I'd met in uni lived in the country and where and hit them up as to whether I could chill with them for a couple days. Got a lot of yeses, but timings with some of them didn't work out so had to whittle it down. Started at Lancaster and hit up Rotherham, London, Leeds, Telford and home. Only expense was the train tickets, which wasn't too bad since I have a student railcard, and alcohol. Accommo was free and food too usually.
Then I spent a few weeks in France WWOOFing on my uncle's farm in exchange for room and board. Bit of nepotism never hurt anyone, but after the experience I'll definitely pay for a WWOOF membership at some point.
Then I worked at a hostel in the Netherlands for a month, again in exchange for room and board. Free meal each day so my only expense was on alcohol, and we got a great staff discount at the bar.
Came home, stayed for a bit, then popped in at Telford again on the way back to Lancaster.
All in all the best summer of my life. I enjoyed the independence, seeing all these new places I've never been before and spending some time with friends that I never usually spent 1-on-1 time with. Ignoring alcohol costs, the whole holiday probably amounted to around £200-300.
Pic related, makin' it rain.
