Recently, a friend of mine who was visiting for my (now postponed) wedding had his grand travel plans derailed in a rather spectacular way. B, as I will call him, had planned to stay for a month in Thailand, with a side trip to India. I’ll detail his travel derailment below, but it got me thinking – when you’re traveling, is there a point where you get so much bad luck that you just give up and cancel? It’s a relevant question because travel is not, as the TV shows would have you believe, a seamless, stress-free experience. And as an expat in Bangkok you meet a lot of travelers – from first-timers to round-the-worlders to full-time travel experts. To get a bit of perspective, I asked B a bit about his attitude during the whole thing, as well as a few of my professional traveler friends to see what they had to say about how much fate dictates their next move and how they deal when they just can’t seem to catch a break.

So, here was B’s experience, and see if this would make you just give up and go home: He came into Thailand a few weeks before my wedding and headed up to Chiang Mai for a bit of a motorbike tour. A few days out he got hit by a car, flew over the hood, landed in a ditch, and got some serious road rash. A week’s recovery got him back up to speed, but then he got pinkeye on his trip back to Bangkok – not a huge deal, but a bummer nonetheless. But when his sister D (who would be going to India with him) dropped off their passports at the Indian embassy, they were told it would take 6 days to process instead of the 2 or 3 they were planning on – plus a few days off for an Indian holiday that weekend. Okay, said B, we’ll push our tickets back and head to Ko Samet for a week to chill out.

Then, while on Samet, he got a mosquito bite on his leg that got infected in a big way. Long story short, he had to have surgery and spent 10 days in hospital on an antibiotic drip with a hole in his leg the size of a ping pong ball. No problem, he said, we’ll just push our tickets back another week. D headed to the Indian embassy to pick up the visas, but found out they’d spelled B’s name wrong. Damn, have to push back the tickets another few days. But while at the offices of Kingfisher Airlines, she was told that as of that morning they were suspending all flights to India from Bangkok, and gave them their money back.

In hindsight, you can see the problem.

In hindsight, you can see the problem.

At this point, with their three week Indian vacation whittled down to about 5 days, D gave up and went back home, and I can’t say I really blame her. Thankfully, and very much in the tradition of the best of Thailand’s ‘sanook’ attitude, B has remained in great spirits and plans on going to India early in the new year after taking some courses here and making the most of his injury. I really admire him for this because, as I said, traveling isn’t easy, and to keep such a positive outlook when things go wrong is difficult in the best of times. He said: “Personally, I never thought of going home for two main reasons:

First, I never felt that my health was at risk. Thailand has a fantastic healthcare system, and the cost of treatment was reasonable. Financially, it wasn’t a concern for me, but that might play a bigger role in other people who might not make the same decision I did, which is fine. Second, and most importantly, I think travel is more than “connecting the dots” from landmark to landmark; it’s about submerging yourself into an experience, both good and bad. Once you open yourself to experiencing and get rid of the judgement of what is good and what is bad, you fully embrace your journey. Working hard, saving money, quitting jobs, and leaving families for the duration is a real achievement, and I think that by tucking tail and running, you give away that power and motivation that inspired your journey.

I asked him what he would tell other travelers who may be about to head out on their own and he said:

Your experiences are your own, and no one will ever fully relate to them. You are out on this amazing journey, expereincing and seeing things that are life changing, however everyone back home is still living their lives. People write home, or return home, and feel a depression because they want people to be as excited as they are, and are often let down by the response. The lesson, and a hard one, is to learn to validate your journey to yourself and not look outside to others. Once you are able to do that, I find the depression and loneliness disappears. Life is a collection of stories and expereinces, and if you embrace each day and live in the moment recognizing the story is being written you more easily accept all that comes… And I got some pretty good stories 🙂
What happened to my arm, you ask? Have a seat, my good man, have I got a story for you!"

What happened to my arm, you ask? Have a seat, my good man, have I got a story for you!”

I posed some similar questions to my buddy Kyle, of On Our Own Path – Notes From our Global Life, a really excellent travel blog. He sums it up nicely by saying “We don’t listen to universe so much, but we do listen to ourselves. For instance, if we would have listened to the universe, we probably would have left Burma within a month. It’s a pain in the ass to do anything here and everything gets thrown in your way. Thankfully, most roadblocks are just temporary or annoying.” On his trip to Bangkok right in the middle of the recent floods, he says:

We had booked our tickets in/out of BKK way in advance. Then, all the news came in about how the whole city was going to be under water, etc. We could have taken that as an omen to go to KL to get our new visas, but we headed to BKK, anyway. The universe might have been telling us that we should be checking out KL, but we didn’t really listen to it and went on with our plans. We’ve had busses break down, cities run out of hotel rooms, boats almost sink, warnings about safety, etc, but it hasn’t really deterred us. When everything is going wrong, we just take a step back, relax, wait, and try it a different way. Most of our roadblocks seem to be temporary.

The inimitable Jodi from Legal Nomads – the tiniest package of awesome you’re ever likely to meet – tells her tale of listening to the universe and thinking that maybe something is out of reach – for now:

The first time I planned on climbing Kilimanjaro I got into a car accident and didn’t end up going because of back problems. On my second attempt, I got bronchitis and still said, ‘You know I can do this, I can power through and I won’t die on the mountain, I’ll just take my time, perhaps an extra day to acclimatize.’ But then I fell in South Africa and tore two tendons in my ankle, and the voice in my head just said ‘You are not meant to climb this mountain.’ It might sound silly because I rarely abide by these kinds of ‘signs’ but I’ve given up on making that climb a priority. Instead, I went elsewhere and it led to a whole slew of people that I never expected to meet. 

Finally, one of the most seasoned travelers out there, Matt from Nomadic Matt, summed it up with a typical dose of his laid back travel style:

I just go with the flow, man. I go where I want, when I want. Simple as that. If I aim for place X and end up in place Y so be it. I let the road take me where it goes. 

I’m lucky to have some pretty cool friends. As you can see, a healthy dose of humility and a slight taste for adventure can have a really positive effect on how you see and experience any given situation. Now I just need to learn to apply these to my desk job.