I am on the Internet a lot (sigh) and spend a lot of time reading personal finance blogs. It seems that people blogging about personal finance, financial independence, and FIRE have something in common besides wanting to be good with money and to retire early and do whatever they want (like blogging): they all love to travel.
Now, a lot of these blogs also happen to be geared toward physicians or high earners, so I guess that should adjust my mindset somewhat, but it’s common to read about people spending 20-50 grand a year on travel. Which makes my eyes widen a bit.
It’s not just on the blogs. At my job, every new hire gets introduced by a faculty member at one of our monthly meetings. Invariably, at least one slide on their introduction PowerPoint will show them hiking, posing in front of a big building, etc., and we will be informed that this person “loves to travel.” Colleagues discuss their European vacation plans.
Admittedly, this is selection bias. People don’t talk about how they aren’t going on a European vacation, and bloggers tend not to post about how they spend $2,000 on travel this year, not because they were awesome at credit card hacking but because they just didn’t travel anywhere other to visit their parents a few states away.
Of my immediate family, baring the one who is incarcerated, I am probably least traveled. I was born in Europe but we moved to Nebraska before I could remember anything different. Since then, I’ve been to Mexico and Canada a few times, Peru, some of the Caribbean (on a cruise), England, and Uganda. The sister after me has spent the last two years of her life in Uganda, went to Egypt on a work trip there, visited Israel in seminary, toured through Italy and Ireland during Bible college, went on a river cruise from Austria to the Netherlands a few summers ago, and is currently visiting a friend in Finland and a cousin in Switzerland. My brother went on a world tour after graduating from the Air Force academy including more places than I’m aware of, and spend three years with his wife in England where they went on frequent trips to France, Poland, Greece, Germany and more. My youngest sister studied abroad in Spain. My mom and dad met in Japan and spend the first few years of their married life in Europe. Enough said.
Actually, typing out all the places I’ve been is making me realize I’ve actually been to quite a few places. Ok, so this is my privilege speaking. Nevertheless…
When I read and hear about other people’s adventures, part of me feels jealous, like I’m missing out on awesome experiences. Another part of me acknowledges the reality: I’ve been pretty busy for the last 9 years (medical school + residency + fellowship + moving, having a baby and starting my first attending job), I’m a homebody, and my husband accepts traveling as a necessary evil of being married to me.
While I do hope to visit (some more) cool places some day, I think don’t travel will ever be a major category in our budget, unless we start paying to bring people with us. (That is a distant dream of mine!) That’s ok. My homebody heart and my husband are happy.
SDG