Backpacking in Your 30s: Travelling When You’re 30+
Two months before my 30th birthday I went travelling. My long term relationship had finished – almost six months to the day before my 30th – I had some savings, and my side hustle – this blog – was going well. So well that sometimes it felt like I was doing two jobs.
It was time to leave the rat race in London, and take me and my blog on the road. I went backpacking in my 30s.
It’s mad that that was five years ago now.
FIVE years.
Before we’d ever even heard the word ‘Brexit’. Woooahhh.
Time goes so weirdly fast, yet, I’ve packed an absolute lifetime of adventures in those five years – including buying a house, and meeting Ben, and after three years on the road, coming back to England to live.
Travelling at 30
My gap year at 30 lasted three years. Three years of a crazy freedom most people don’t get to experience for a week. I feel so, so lucky that I get to do this travel blogging and content creation for a job. Honestly, writing and travelling is what I’d do if I won the lottery. I already have my absolute dream career.
It did take a gamble and a leap of faith or two though. And a lot of hard work.
During those three years of travel I used to write for my old employer, gapyear.com, and the other day I came across this blog post I’d written, about taking a gap year in your thirties. It was a time warp for me, a flashback to those first few months of exploring the world and getting to experience all the places I’d read about in my previous two jobs in travel journalism.
Today is my 35th birthday. Five years since I sold everything and went travelling. So, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to publish the edited version on my blog.
Too old to travel?
As we get into our thirties, forties, fifties on so on, I think it’s easy to claim we’re ‘too old to do that’. Talking ourselves out of the many wonderful opportunities that are open to us because we’re worried about our age, and the age of those around us. I know I do this. The thing is though, you’re never going to be as young as you are now.
See, you’re already older.
I think travel is one of those things. Going travelling when you’re that bit older often isn’t as easy as it is for people in their twenties. But we’re not going to let a little thing like a few challenges get in the way of us and our dreams, are we?!
If you’re thinking of travelling long term, but you’re worried about being older than the average, then I hope this post will give you the push you need, or at least something to think about. And if you’re not, well just read this and bank it for the future. You never know what could exciting adventures are waiting in your future.