Navigating Long-Term Solo Travel & Blogging: A Complex Drifter’s Diary

Last Updated on November 20, 2023 by Christine Kaaloa

cambodian tuk-tuk driver relaxesSiem Reap, Cambodia: Navigating Long-Term Solo Travel & Blogging: A Complex Drifter’s Diary

 

Siem Reap, Cambodia Update (Love Letter 15)

Embarking on the fifth month of my backpacking adventure, I find myself at a crossroads in my blogging journey. The goal of sharing my experiences on the long-term solo travel road has proven to be a challenging beast to tackle! Blogging while navigating uncharted waters of a country, impromptu trip planning and meeting the demands of carrying a backpack of your home on your shoulders is… a lot.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post. I used World Nomads, but this is a trip insurance finder to match your budget!  Check out my solo travel gear and trip resource page.

In this post, I want to share what it’s like navigating Long-Term Solo Travel & Blogging.

Check out what I pack for Travel Vlogging and Blogging

The Challenges of Blogging on the Road

While my initial goal was to chronologically document my travels in India and yoga teacher’s program, the unpredictable nature of long-term solo travel has forced me to reconsider my approach.

The goal of documenting my journey in real-time is an ambitious undertaking. It’s not a matter of the destinations being any less amazing than they are. It is quite the opposite.

Travel Bloggers
The job of travel blogging is travel mixed with work

1.  I can only write once I understand what I experienced.

Every new destination poses incredibly colorful, dizzying and thrilling adventures with meeting new people, trying new foods, exploring landmarks, decoding cultures and struggling with solo female navigation. It’s just darn near impossible to capture the essence of each moment while I’m living it.

Experiences also come with emotions. If a place does not produce the initial thrill I might’ve hoped and i’m disappointed or it produces a lot of thrill, curiosity, endless questions and elation…  it’s a lot to process, dissemble and decode. Only after I go through the journey of processing my experiences, can I assemble it all back into words.

2. Writing involves a fair amount of introspection and reflection.

Continuing from the previous idea, a sort of digestion of experiences is required. For my insights to be valuable, I have to have learned or gained a valuable lesson from it.

3. Sometimes, it even requires taking notes or researching facts.

Travel blogging is only strong if it can offer facts over guesswork. I want to shed insight but not misinterpret a culture and that is challenging when there is a language barrier to break through or I’m meeting locals that can give me only a partial understanding. Additional research is required and this takes time.

Read about my Travel Vlogging Journey with YouTube

4. Writing takes standing still

To write, I need to be still and be able to hunker down in one place so I can have stable, alone time and internet to write. It’s a romantic notion that you’ll write your blog whilst traveling on an Indian train, but it’s not always doable or practical in reality. I tried it and it was hard to focus with locals passing by, doing curious things that caught my attention or knowing I had to get off at a station and then find my way to my hotel where I’d plan the rest of my day’s itinerary, etc….

Renting a $6/night room in Cambodia to chill for several days was vital. Not every day has to be exciting and it’s a blessing when it is not. To not have an itinerary or seek things to excite my wonder, allows me to calm my mind to focus and contemplation.

Lessons in Impromptu Trip Planning and the Drifter’s Lifestyle

While I’m eager to share the intricacies of impromptu trip planning and the highs and lows of long-term solo travel, the reality is that writing and posting demand substantial time, energy, and a consistent internet connection—elements that are often elusive on the road.

Living day-to-day is work. Money, homelessness, itinerary, possessions are a juggling act. A vigorous workout.

Here’s long term travel lessons

Money Matters

The uncertainty of the journey’s duration requires frugality, punctuated by occasional splurges. I monitor my budget daily – I need to track how much i’m spending daily and monthly to know if i’m exhausting my budget too quickly or i’m on point. My budget today, dictates my budget tomorrow and ultimately, it decides things like lodgings, transportation and the costs to different destinations.

Homelessness on the Road

It’s hard to gauge what country (or city) I’ll be in from day-to-day, so most of my hotels are found after I step off the bus. I point to a budget name in my guidebook and have the driver take me there– then I do my neighborhood hotel search on foot.

The constant shift in location challenges the conventional idea of a stable home, making hotel choices a spontaneous, on-the-spot decision. It gets tiring to be continually moving and after a while, this vagabonding thang feels like aimless drifting. A rootless existence with no bearings. I begin to crave a home base where I know people and have a routine.

Flexible Itinerary

Planning my days becomes a day-of or night-before decision, dictated by the ebb and flow of my energy. Where do I go next – Taiwan or BorneoLaos or Vietnam?  How long do I stay in each city, etc… when you’re solo, there’s no sounding board for me to bounce ideas off from.  It’s mildly stressful to have to decide what you want to do when you’re still figuring it all out. Ultimately, it gets down to the scary existential question– Who are you and what do you want out of life?  What is your purpose for traveling?

Possessions and the Drifter’s Burden

As I traverse this unstructured life, I empathize with the burden of having possessions, because less begins to feel like more and I feel like a sherpa carrying my house on my back.  On one hand, there is the freedom and joy of living minimally.  Alternately,m you just want a place to call your own so you can unpack your backpack and be messy.

Overnight bus to Poipet, Cambodia
I had the worst seat in the bus while bad travelers hoarded space (Overnight bus to Poipet, Cambodia)

Freedom as a Drifter: A Blessing and a Curse

The dichotomy of travel freedom… I feel it now. While I strive to make every day count, there are moments when the overwhelming freedom feels like a curse. This unconventional lifestyle, unbound by the structures we’re born into, sometimes leads to moments of uncertainty and stress.

  • Structured Lives vs. Unnatural Freedom: The contrast between the structured lives we’re born into and the unnaturally unrestricted freedom of the road can be disorienting.  I’ve known structure all my life and the security I feel is not that I feel safe in its comfort, but I feel purpose, connectedness with my social structure and environment, a belonging.  To feel unrestricted freedom, at times feels like i’m a floating point, existing for myself, but lacking a reason. I find myself questioning my purpose and my travels a lot.
  • Navigating the Drifter’s Paradox: Despite the occasional stress, I recognize the urgency to fully embrace and exhaust my days. I want to hungrily grab the most I can out of each moment for fear I’ll not experience it again once I return home to my society. And yet, the double-edged sword causes me stress, a level of unhappiness, overload and overwhelm of experiences.

Conclusion: As I navigate the beauty and freedom of long-term solo travel, blogging becomes a mirror reflecting the challenges, uncertainties, and profound moments of this unscripted adventure.

Share your experiences with navigating long-term solo travel and blogging!

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