SOUTHEAST ASIA: How in the world - 2

Part 2 of 3: Preparing a MINDSET for backpacking Southeast Asia and beyond in midlife

This is Part 2 of a three-part series. To start at Part 1, click here.

Last week we discussed how we budget for our style of travel—backpacking as midlifers for months in places where the cost of living is low and the American dollar is strong. As I pointed out, step by step, it is not as expensive as you might think. In fact, many people do long-term, low-cost travel as a way to SAVE money.

After last week’s post went out, in fact, we met a French Canadian couple, Gigi and Andrew, at our Hanoi hostel’s happy hour. They are nearly our twins—same age, same travel style, same basic budget, same gear concerns, etc. We enjoyed spending time with them, getting to know each other over two days during the Vietnamese holiday of Tet. Then just yesterday, at our Tam Coc guesthouse’s patio breakfast, we met a Kiwi couple, Shannon and Sam, phone app game designers a couple of decades younger than us. We asked when they plan to return to New Zealand, and they both cringed, looked at each other, then shrugged. Going back would be too expensive, they admitted. We grinned and nodded. We get it.

But there is more than just budgeting to consider before deciding to travel like this for an extended period of time. In order to make this kind of lifestyle work, there are several other key factors related to one’s mindset. After all, long-term low-budget travel is not the same as vacation. If you can't switch from the mentality of a short-term tourist to a long-term traveler, you will be sorely disappointed.

• You must be willing to travel slowly. Long-term travel is about the journey, not the destination. As Americans in particular, because we get so little time off compared to Europeans, we tend to be destination travelers. We go TO this place or that for spring break or for “vacation.” To conserve time, we fly to the closest airport. Or we drive long days, covering hundreds of miles at a stretch and using crazy amounts of gasoline to do it, stopping only briefly to fill the car’s fuel tank and empty our own. Long-term low-budget travel is just the opposite. You transport yourself to a region, one way or another, but that is not the destination; that is merely the launching pad. Once in the region, you start the journey, wandering slowly and exploring as you go. Ground transportation is much more affordable when you are not in a hurry and can go slowly. Several times now, Andy and I have taken train or bus rides that took most of a day or night, with multiple stops to take on and let off passengers, but only cost less than ten dollars—sometimes for both of us combined. Some of the low and slow transportation has been comfortable and pleasant. Some has been a bit of a grind. That brings us to our next key.

• You must be willing to sacrifice comfort and certainty. If you need everything to be perfect and always flow smoothly, this type of low-cost travel is not for you. For us, and the other travelers we have met along our path, we never know what each day or night will hold. The mattress and pillows might be comfortable, or they might not. Roosters with a distorted circadian rhythm might begin their incessant crowing at three or four o’clock in the morning, just after the noisy neighbors finally fall asleep. The shower might have reliable hot water, but you may be so over-heated from the weather that you don't even want to use it. The air-conditioning may work so well that your setting of 23 Celsius freezes you out by the middle of the night, whereas another place’s 23 degrees leaves you sweltering in place. You may need to hang your own mosquito net if the room seems a little buggy. The included breakfast might be a thick slice of dry toast with two greasy fried eggs, or it might be a full spread of delicious dishes, made to order. Or it might not exist at all, despite what the listing said. Dirty clothes might require that you do some emergency washing in the bathroom sink (without a stopper) and decorate your room with items hanging up to dry—which, depending on the humidity, may or may not happen by the next morning. Or you might find an open-air automatic laundromat on a street corner, OR you may just have to trust your hotel or the random lady down the street to take your bag of laundry in the morning and then go back for it in the evening. Or the next day. It’s a little different every time. When you are not staying in the glitzy, glamorous, glass and chrome skyscrapery parts of town, the stair steps will not all be the same size, and some of the tiles will be loose or broken and jagged. You will frequently step over open sewers or piles of garbage and the smell will be bad. The sidewalk will often be so crowded with motor scooters and food vendors and enormous protruding tree roots that you need to walk in the street with the traffic. You will need to jaywalk through terrible traffic with horns beeping and tooting all around you and vehicles only inches away, all the time. You will feel disoriented and confused several times a day. If you can't take these things in stride with a smile and a shrug—or better yet, no reaction at all—I do not recommend this kind of travel for you.

• You must be willing to be spontaneous and not have every detail planned well in advance. The boat schedule you read about online may have changed and the website was not updated, leaving you high and dry in a tiny town, unsure of where to stay and unable to access any internet search engines. The hotel or hostel with stellar reviews may be going through a severe rough patch in staffing or management, so much so that you need to find a way out of your booking and into something else. You may find you like a town so much you want to stay an extra night or two, or you may find you are ready to move on earlier than expected. An opportunity to dance with strangers and sample the food and drink they want to share with you may come up on the night you were hoping to get to bed early.

• You must consider whether solo or buddy-travel works best for you. Alone, you will have no one else you need to consider or consult for decision-making, which allows you to be more autonomous and quick on your feet. But with a buddy, you get to share expenses like cab fare and lodging, plus you have someone to laugh with and someone who will share your frustrations and joys. We have met solo travelers, both men and women, who are living their best lives and wouldn't do it any other way; and we have met couples, friends, siblings, and even parent-child teams who are knocking it out of the park for months or even years on end. There are definite benefits each way. Side note: Southeast Asia makes it fairly easy to travel as a single woman, as it is surprisingly safe. Several of the solo females we have met have said they feel so much safer traveling in Southeast Asia than they feel at home in the USA or Europe. Even as a couple, we have experienced the same feelings of increased safety.

You must be willing to be hot and sweaty much of the time, as well as occasionally coated with insect repellent. The cost of travel seems to be inversely correlated with the level of heat, humidity, and mosquitoes you are willing to endure. Yes, you will feel gritty, grimy, and sticky. No, you won't just get used to it in a few weeks. Yes, the locals don't appear to be nearly as affected by the heat. No, I don't know how they do it, either. A cool shower at the end of the day is your friend, as is an occasional breezy motorbike or open-air tuktuk ride.

• You must be willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and let them go. So you got the date wrong when you reserved a non-refundable hotel and had to pay an extra $20. So you ordered a meal that turned out to be so spicy you couldn't enjoy it. So you thought the train seats would come with cushions and air-conditioning. So you got a terrible stain on your favorite shirt, so bad that you feel the need to discard it and replace it with something from a local market—with no way to try it on first for a proper fit. So you miscalculated an exchange rate and accidently overpaid—by quite a bit. Move on. Life is too short for living with regret over such inconsequential matters.

• You must be willing to bring only what you can comfortably carry for a mile. This kind of travel is not ideal for your cute little roller suitcase, even if it is carry-on size, unless you are able to pick it up and carry it for long stretches. The roads and sidewalks will frequently be a mess. Count on it. But if your next lodging is only a fifteen minute walk from the train station, it’s hardly worth hailing a cab or even a tuktuk. The lower-budget accomodations will rarely have elevators, and they might assign you a room you love, with an incredible view of the city, but on the sixth floor. The only access down to the subway station or up to the commuter train platform may be via an impossibly long staircase because the escalator is broken—or because they don't have one at your station. Be prepared to carry everything—preferably in a well-made backpack with a quality hip belt, the easiest way to bear the weight. As an example, my pack has a 40-liter capacity and weighs a svelte 21-22 lbs. fully loaded. Andy’s has a 48-liter capacity and weighs in at under 28 pounds. Added to this pack, we each carry a small cross-body bag for daily essentials once our packs are stowed in our hotel room, and we each have a water bottle in a sling that we can wear instead of carry. These things allow us to be hands-free, carrying nothing most of the time—all the better for taking photos and eating street food! (I will discuss gear at a more in-depth level in part three of this series.)

• You must be willing to bumble through language barriers and use the adaptive technology available to you. We regularly use Google translate to communicate—both written and audio. The locals all use it, too, so language barriers are rarely insurmountable. We use Google Lens to translate signs and menus. Neither is consistently perfect, but both have proven good enough, at least most of the time. We regularly use Agoda.com—an Asian site I’d never heard of before this trip—for booking hotels. Likewise, we use Grab—an exclusively Asian rideshare app—when we need to call a taxi; and we use 12go.asia for booking trains and buses. Every other traveler we speak to uses all of these tools regularly, too. You can try to go old school and travel with only a paperback guidebook, but parts of that book were out of date before it made it into print. The world has become a fast-moving digital place.

• You must be willing to adapt, adjust, and accept things that are different, all the time. If you feel completely comfortable when you are traveling, like you are at home instead of in a foreign land, then be assured you are paying a premium for that sensation. If you want to travel long-term, on a low budget, you will need to let go of comfort and constantly adjust to the way things are done locally.

If this all sounds exciting, like something you would be willing to grow into, rather than something foreboding and negative, then try it! Long-term low-budget travel could be for you.

Although it is harder work than it appears in the pretty photos we post, this kind of travel is also amazing.

And life-changing.

And a great way to stay young and adaptable.

And a wonderful way to make new friends from all over the world.

And an excellent way to build unmatched team unity and lifelong memories with your spouse or sibling or best friend, or adult child—or as a solo traveler, to build confidence and mental strength you never thought possible.

Plus the photos are pretty amazing. 😊

Either next week or soon thereafter (gotta stay flexible and adaptable), I will complete this little “How in the world” series with a post about the gear we have found essential for this style of travel, plus what we THOUGHT would be important and just hasn't been after all.

So long from rural Vietnam. Until next week,

Sherry

This is Part 2 of a three-part series. To continue with Part 3, click here.