5 Stages of Travel Envy

/ April 11, 2014
How can you not be envious?! (Photo: Ian Burt@Flickr)

How can you not be envious of this?! (Photo: Ian Burt@Flickr)

Lately I’ve been burning with jealousy. Friends have been inviting me to travel or telling me of their intended trips which makes me green with envy. The bad news is, I’m deskbound until the middle of the year with work and endless engagements. Which makes me feel worse since I have not been able to travel. And that is when travel envy pokes its head out.

The five stages starts off slowly.

Stage One: You are in awe of each travel story. You put it on your bucket list. You embrace every new destinations you read about.

Which makes you move up to,

Stage Two: You also want to have the same experience. You negotiate your budget with yourself. You decide to make your pennies count.

And that leads to,

Stage Three: You realise that you need a huge mountain of pennies. You look through photos uploaded by friends on Facebook to justify the trip. You despair of ever going.

And then, you get to,

Stage Four: Denial. You still insist that you can make it. You stop socialising and reading online in the hopes that you don’t get to hear of more stories. You decide that Facebook and Twitter is EVIL.

It’s been a long journey but you have made it to,

Stage Five: You accept that it is a big world and that you cannot possibly visit every single place. Repeat constantly “I will not be envious. I will not be envious. I will not be envious.”

So my conclusion?

I’ve decided that since I cannot possibly get EVERYWHERE, at least I get to read about SOMEWHERE.

Do you get travel envy too? How do you deal with yours? Please do share!! 🙂

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31 thoughts on “5 Stages of Travel Envy”

  1. This post made me laugh! I definitely get travel envy! I deal with travel envy by trying to stick to travel on whatever continent my work sends me to so that I can keep costs down. I also try to remember that I am still young and I have many years of travelling ahead of me so I just add places I want to go to my bucket list.

    -Amanda at http://teachingwanderlust.com/

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    • You are so lucky you get to work and travel!! How I wish I have those kind of jobs. I’m totally deskbound but my peak periods are always in the first half of the year so my jealousy scale is always way up high then. But I also do the same as you by telling myself I can’t possibly get to everywhere I’m reading about…so I’ll just take my time getting around instead. Still does not stop the green envy though!!! Hahaha….

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    • Hahahaha…I get it ALL the time….I’ve even had to ban myself from facebook during holiday periods cos friends keep posting about their travels….n its worse now since I’m reading so much of other travel posts…so it’s a matter of keeping my sanity when I tell myself it’s ok I’m not going everywhere that I want to. I would have gone crazy trying to go everywhere….hahaha..

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  3. Don’t worry, when the time comes it will be worth it. I saved up and waited for 6 years to take a year off and travel and now I see why the wait was worth it. Keep holding on girl!
    Jessica, Turquoise Compass

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  6. I know what you mean about the endless, insatiable wanderlust. You can never cure itchy feet once you have it!

    I’m exactly the same, I spend periods of time at home between extended periods of travelling (I’m a nurse so have to do so many hours a year to stay qualified) and every day I am home I am just itching to get back out there again.

    The difference is I LOVE reading about others travels when I am home because it inspires me. I know that I will be out on the road again before long, and that gets me through the periods that I am not. I only get travelenvy in the sense that I want to be there RIGHT NOW!!! ;D But then I use that and start planning a trip there. Just because you are at your desk job now, doesn’t mean you have to be in a few months time! Haha!

    Yes it is a huge, huge world out there, but you CAN visit it all if you really want to. Work hard and save up, in a few months when you aren’t tied to your desk any more the world is your oyster, just waiting for you to explore it!

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    • Yay!! I wish there’s a thumbs up function here. You get 2 thumbs up!

      Totally agree with you but that does not stop the envy from popping up..haha….the ugly guy has a mind of his own.

      Instead of trying to get to everywhere, I aim to keep it to within my limits. I don’t have to visit every place. There’s always plenty of places to go and visit even around you. To me, what matters is the experience you gain when you travel.

      So I’ve reached the point that if I don’t manage to get there, I’m happy enough that I have been able to read about the place to know it better.

      I’m definitely waiting and planning and saving…and I do the same thing as you by drawing on others experience to plan my trips…I’ll just get there at my own time and pace…even if I don’t get to visit all of them.

      Thanks so much for the awesome post!!! 🙂

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    • *high five* TOTALLY get you….which is why I’ve accepted that it’s easier if I just take it one at a time rather than try to conquer the world. Haha…your adventures are seriously awesome to read about!! Are you still travelling?

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      • Thanks so much! I enjoy following yours as well, I love your writing style. I’d love to get to Japan someday. I’m home in the States at the moment. I’ll be traveling again next month in SE Asia. I can’t wait!

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      • Awesome….hope you enjoy your time here…:) you’ll find a whole new world out here…even though I find it familiar, there are still things that I have to get used to even from an asian perspective…I think I’ve maybe become a bit more westernised than others…….hahaha…:)

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  12. Sha I love this post. So very clever. I do now have the ability to travel quite a bit however with every post I read of exotic destinations the wanderlust hits me and I admit to a wee bit of travel envy. 🙂

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  13. Pingback: Some travel inspiration | World Journeys

  14. This made me giggle, I’ve currently got awful travel envy and trying to write a post on FOMO and how much it sucks!
    I constantly look up flight prices whenever when my friends go away (maybe i could spontaneously go and join them for a while?!)
    marysprojectyear.wordpress.com

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