Back when I first dipped my toes into the world of exploration, my father had a recurring question that haunted our conversations. He would look at me with genuine concern and ask, “What exactly are you running away from with all this traveling?” I wasn’t the only one facing this scrutiny. On another occasion, a stranger left a harsh comment on my site, telling me to quit escaping my issues and start actually living. “Grow up,” he commanded, as if maturity only exists within four walls.
Years prior, I even stumbled across a blog titled “Mom Says I’m Running Away.” It seems to be a common narrative. I’m not entirely sure why, but there is a pervasive perception out there suggesting that anyone who engages in long-term travel without settling down or grabbing a conventional job must be fleeing from some deep-seated trauma.
We travelers are constantly accused of dodging responsibility, refusing to be grown-ups, escaping heartache, or hiding from problems. The label stuck: we are all just Peter Pans stubbornly refusing to become “adults.”
The Matrix vs. The Open Road
While American society generally agrees that traveling is something everyone should experience at least once, the acceptance stops at gap years after college or brief vacations. Those seem acceptable. The unspoken rule is: get it out of your system and then return to The Matrix.
Those of us who lead nomadic lifestyles, or who linger just a bit too long in a paradise before reaching that final homestretch, are all too often accused of running away.
“Yes, go travel—but not for too long,” the world whispers. Responsible people don’t just travel forever. That’s the doctrine.
The assumption is that we nomads must have awful, miserable lives, or we are weird, or something traumatic happened to us that we are trying to escape. People assume that we are simply running away from our problems, running away from “the real world.”
Yes, I Am Running Away—But Toward What?
And to all those people who think I am running away, I say: you are absolutely right.
I am running away.
I’m running away from your rigid idea of the “real” world. I’m avoiding your version of life. I’m running towards everything—towards the globe, exotic places, new people, different cultures, and my own definition of freedom. I’m building a life that makes me happy, not one that makes sense to you.
While there may be exceptions (as there are with everything), most people who become nomads do so because they want to experience the world, not escape their problems. They are running away from office life, soul-crushing commutes, and weekend errands, and the corporate 9 to 5 grind. They are running away from the strict path society has laid out as “normal.” The one that makes us mindless ants marching to and fro without questioning the destination.
We (I) want to experience every culture, see every mountain, eat different food, attend crazy festivals, meet new people, and enjoy different holidays around the world. We want to construct a life that makes us happy on our own terms, not on a corporate HR schedule.
Life is short and we only get to live it once. I want to look back and say I did exciting things and lived life on my own terms, not say I spent my life reading blogs like this during my lunch break while wishing I was doing the same thing.
No one dies saying, “If only I had spent more time in the office!”
Breaking the American Mold
As an American, my perspective might be different. In my country, the accepted path is long and narrow: you go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house, have 2.5 children, raise them, and then retire. Only then, after you’ve put in your time, can you enjoy the fruits of your labor. Society boxes you in and restricts your movements to their expectations.
And any deviation is considered abnormal and weird.
People may want to travel, tell you they envy what you do, and say they wish they could do the same thing. But they never do. Few people muster the courage to take the leap, no matter how much their heart pulls them. They are simply fascinated by a lifestyle so outside the norm.
While social media, the rise of digital nomading, and websites like this have made quitting your job to travel the world or teach English in Thailand a little more acceptable, the general attitude is still “follow the path if you want to be normal.”
Well, I don’t want to be normal.
I feel like the reason why people tell us we are running away is that they can’t fathom the fact that we broke the mold and are living outside the norm. To want to break all of society’s conventions, there simply must be something wrong with us. (Maybe they are a little jealous too?)
But life is what you make it out to be. Life is yours to create. We are all chained down by the burdens we place upon ourselves, whether they are bills, errands, or, like me, self-imposed blogging deadlines. If you really want something, you have to go after it.
People who travel the world aren’t running away from life. Just the opposite. Those that break the mold, explore the world, and live on their own terms are running toward true living, in my opinion. We have a degree of freedom a lot of people will never experience. We get to be the captains of our ships.
But it is a freedom we chose to have.
We looked around and said, “I want something different.”
And then we went for it.
It was that freedom and attitude I saw in travelers years ago in Thailand that inspired me to do lead the life I am now. I saw them break the mold and I thought to myself, “Why not me?”
I’m not running away.
No.
I am just running towards my own idea of a normal life.
And I never plan to look back.
