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3 Strategies For Curing Wanderlust

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What does your mind lust for when it wanders?
Vistas unseen?
Languages unheard?
Cultures unencountered?
Trails untrampled?
Peaks unsummited?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you may be afflicted with a condition known as Wanderlust. Other symptoms may include:
Extreme envy when hearing about a friend’s upcoming vacation.
Trouble focusing when sitting in a cubicle all day.
Creating hypothetical gear lists for potential expeditions.
Restless curiosity when pondering “what else is out there?”
Feeling dissatisfied with your daily grind immediately upon returning from your trip.
Perhaps the most indicative symptom is the onerous weight of your to-do list. Not the list that contains “buy toilet paper” and “fix leaky air mattress”, but the list of all the trails you want to explore - trails in your local wilderness, and trails that lead halfway around the world. Does your list grow faster than you can cross the items off? There are some known strategies to cure wanderlust, or at least keep the symptoms in check.
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1. Maximize vacation time

The easiest way to ease your symptoms of Wanderlust, and what you’re probably already doing, is to use all of your vacation time as well as to sneak in long weekends whenever possible. This strategy is great for visiting trails not far from where you live. Or, within a short flight. If you want to go abroad, that takes a bit more planning. Some afflicted wanderlusters save a couple years of vacation days and then do a really long trip abroad. That way, one location can be explored in depth. Saving up every single vacation day for several years in order to take a longer trip is probably an option only feasible for people who truly love their job. For the rest of us, regular vacation days are essential to our mental health.
But at this rate, how quickly can you cross those items off your list? It can be very slow-going. Although more generous in other parts of the world, vacation limits in the US are typically only 2-3 weeks per year. Perhaps the best way to split up the time is to use 5 days to extend weekends and save 1-2 weeks for a longer trip. In one year you could do 5 or more longer loops or summits, plus the epic Machu Picchu or Milford Trek. This strategy might cure mild cases of Wanderlust, but what about those more heavily afflicted?
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2. Move with your job

A career which enables you to visit new places can be a huge lifestyle improvement. Having your employer help fund your wanderlust can relieve some of the financial strain of traveling. Employers with overseas locations (e.g., multinational corporations, your government’s embassies) may allow your permanent base to move with your job. Or, you can continue to grow roots in your home city while visiting new places during frequent business trips as long as you can tack on a few vacation days.
Research jobs which require international conference attendance provide frequent opportunities to explore new places. Travel service jobs (e.g., hospitality management, certified diver, destination wedding photographer) require travel, but not all of the destinations may be places very intriguing to you. Back-to-back jobs may mean hopping from airport to airport without ever finding the local wilderness or exploring in depth your particular interest in the culture. Starting a side business now which would allow you to live anywhere you’d like (e.g., accounting, carpentry, tech) might make it possible to move with your job if there are no opportunities with your current employer.
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3. Binge travel

End your lease or rent out your house, quit your job, and off you go around the world!
Not that easy, is it?
Saving a large enough chunk of cash to be temporarily unemployed is no small feat. It can interfere with paying off student debt, saving for retirement, hoarding cash for a down payment on a home, or your daily latte.
However, this type of travel might be just the cure you need. Attacking your trail adventure to-do list one item after the other, consecutively until you finish (or give up!) may suck the Wanderlust right out of you. The opportunity to stay in one destination until you cross off everything you want to see, even if you add a few while exploring, alleviates the symptoms of Wanderlust. With no commitments to return to, you have an endless amount of time if financial conditions allow. Backpacking is not too expensive in most parts of the world, as traveling to the destination itself is the largest budget item. Therefore, binge travel is the most timely and financially efficient way to cure wanderlust and might be the only way for those who experience no relief from shorter trips.
An extra bonus to binge traveling for ultralighters is that it allows your body to acclimate slowly to higher altitudes. For those wanting to summit or circumnavigate peaks or mountain ranges, proper acclimation can chop several days off a short vacation, or if acclimation is skipped, render you extremely uncomfortable and unable to enjoy your surroundings. Training your lungs and your legs properly for the mountains means that you can see more in less time. For this reason, I recommend binge traveling for curing your Wanderlust.
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What are your symptoms of Wanderlust?
Have you cured your Wanderlust? If not, what’s your plan? What’s on your list? Have you tried any of these strategies- do they work?
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liquidfire985
2
Aug 10, 2017
#3 does nothing to cure nor ameliorate the symptoms of wanderlust, it only increases them acutely. That said, I still recommend the decision!!
OrCohen
268
Aug 10, 2017
America, has large trails, but short vacations
namhod
1991
Aug 5, 2017
The older I get the more "grounded" I feel in day to day life. I am currently suppressing the urge to buy a blue water worthy sailboat and disappear over the horizon.
ltopper
1113
Dec 21, 2017
namhodWhy would you ever suppress such an urge? GO!
namhod
1991
Dec 23, 2017
ltopperThe fact that the money will not last. :)
PatC
85
Aug 4, 2017
I think this article is feeding my wanderlust rather than curing it! Thanks for the ideas and the wonderful photos.
ltopper
1113
Dec 21, 2017
PatCSeriously. Can we all just take skiis and hike up a mountain already?
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