As someone who was on the road for three years, this was my biggest take away. If anything I'd treat one month as an absolute minimum. I'd prefer not to be anywhere less than 3 months. It ends up taking a week just to get truly unpacked.

From that base, you can still do day trips and weekend trips.

Agreed - 3 months minimum, esp if working while traveling.

This allows to alternate between excursion weekends and relaxing weekends.

I also agree with the "1-2 years" content above - I'd really like to see the seasons cycle through in any particular place I stop.

At what point is this not "traveling" but rather "moving frequently".

When traveling is your lifestyle for some amount of time, I don't really think there is much of a difference while you are living that lifestyle.

The amount of time maybe varies by the location and the visitor, but... how much do you carry that it takes a week to unpack?

Until I started travelling with my wife (and now a child too), one main lesson I learned was "you aren't going to need it" - every time I went travelling it was lighter than the trip before!

I had one carry on for clothing and a backpack for essentials and some electronics.

I guess more accurately it takes a week to get settled in. Most of that time isn't about physically removing the stuff from the bags but more about where you need to put it and what stuff you might need to go rebuy and organize, in the new country.

Sorry, I read that far too literally! Yeah, that's fair enough. I certainly needed large blocks of staying still, but didn't feel the need to stay anywhere as long as three months - month long blocks were more common for me.

Yes, definitely. I find that around 10 days is needed to feel 'at home' somewhat, know where the market is etc, and 2 or 3 months to feel like you live there, depending on the language. It happens quite quickly. It's very satisfying to have lived in a variety of countries.

> My better memories were all from places I stayed for over 2 months, and all have more to do with people I met than the place itself.

How did you go about meeting people in the first place?

Dating apps, couch surfing, and getting out of the house & going where the people are. Expat groups on Facebook and WhatsApp, too.

Yep, dating apps didn't work great for me at all because I have the misfortune of being both unattractive and picky, but couch surfing hangouts work fantastically, especially for meeting local people. Walking around at least puts you in places where people can talk to you, occasionally they do. Wearing unique or attention grabbing things gives people an excuse to talk to you. I always choose trains and buses to travel, conversations are more common there. Hostels are a very easy way meet other travelers and get your social fix when you need it. Often times the staff are friendly enough and if you stay in one hostel long enough or visit with them, the staff might integrate you into their social life. Most hostel staff like to travel, too. Becoming a regular at any kind of place will almost certainly get you conversations with staff. A lot of people you meet in hostels are traveling from the same country or ones you are going to visit, so you meet those people there.

> both unattractive and picky

I know this is HN, but I do have to say: good luck! :-D

Yo forgot the third parameter in the function..

"Know thyself" self-awareness is a strength :)

At least in Europe (can't speak from personal experience elsewhere) you can easily find "Language Exchange" type meetups. Depending on the city, it will be a healthy mix of locals, immigrants, and tourists. If you speak English fluently, you'll typically have a lot of locals eager to talk with you to practice their English, and in turn you can learn/practice the local language in an open environment.

This is lower stress than trying to go to a random bar and strike up a conversation when I don't know the local language very well, and if you're staying long-term, it's a natural way to develop friendships with locals.

How do you avoid getting mugged or murdered from people you couch surf with? Basically avoiding the scammers...? I feel like in Europe, there are so many street scams and that if police aren't even willing to curb that issue, what recourse would you have if someone were to harm you while couch surfing at some random place? The risk feels pretty high to me. I guess you would have to travel really light in these situations?

It's actually very hard to get murdered in Europe if you're actively trying to avoid it. Same for getting scammed. The overwhelming majority of people are decent. The ones who aren't make the news because their behaviour is so unusual.

I highly recommend you give international travel a try!

In civilized parts of the world you don't need to be actively trying to avoid being attacked.

As someone with mild social anxiety, the thought of doing something like that is utterly alien, even in my own country let alone somewhere else. I don't mean in a "i wouldn't do that" sort of way, but in an "i cannot even imagine/does not compute" sort of way.

Anyhow, good on you for living life :)

I also have/had mild social anxiety. When things open up go stay for a couple days in a hostel somewhere (use hostelworld), make sure to find one with a reasonably large common room and be in it, read a book or do some work. It will probably be therapeutic. Not much is forced and socialness tends to just happen. If someone sits near you or says hi ask "Where are you from? How long are you here? What have you done here?" and roll with it. If you do some research on whats in the area or cool food you want to try, you have an immediate opportunity to invite someone to do an activity. It will feel like sitting on an airplane with the door open to go sky diving to you, exhilirating if you manage to make yourself do it.

A useful psychological hack: you have a bit of a desire to do this, hell, it's scary, right? So invite a friend and make it your goal to plan lots of things - its easier to do do something for others quite a lot of the time. Be explict you are doing this. You'll probably find there are some great bits, some other bits you cant control that are exhausting, etc. Then do another trip. Plan to invite that friend. Plan for the good bits and to avoid the worst bits. Then just go by yourself!

The first run through gives you a motivation to do something challenging and consider what you would think people want to do, even if its awks. The second, you take the learnings and reward yourself

I have mild social anxiety. Maybe more than mild. I have to say sometimes it is easier to be social in another setting. For example, in hostels the expectation is to just start talking for no reason and tell that lone traveler that you are indeed exploring the city and inviting them to join you.

Another thing I've found is taking a class - in my case kickboxing classes led to quite a few new friends.

I don't have as much courage to do that in my home country.

> even in my own country let alone somewhere else

It's much easier "somewhere else". Whatever stupid thing you do, you won't meet these people again. It's liberating.

protip: If the travel nurse during a pandemic from Philadelphia really thinks the riskiest thing she’s done is downloading Hinge, you can do it too.

Staying in hostels is great for this purpose. They have private rooms as well, not just shared dorms.

> and all have more to do with people I met than the place itself.

Did you speak the local language?

Nope. Until you travel you don't even have the slightest clue what a privilege it is to speak English or be from America. Educated middle/upper class people everywhere except china (where there is almost no english at all) generally speak at the very least broken English, if not fluent english.

That being said:

One of the most interesting people I met was in china, and I'd say complex ideas were 75% communicated in english. Google translate or wechat translate supplemented the conversations.

One of the other people I met was in Korea. His enlgish was probably closer to 50% and complex ideas almost certainly required a translation app. Great memories though.

I would probably have a conversation mediated entirely by google translate once every other week or so, and google translate was generally good enough to get an idea of menu's or communicate to people with absolutely no english ability at all. Nearly all conversations I had in china were translated via WeChat.

Traveling made me regret circumventing the language requirement in college so much.

> Traveling made me regret circumventing the language requirement in college so much.

I can feel this. I did the opposite. Instead of circumventing the requirement, I studied 5 different languages, and then continued 2 on to relative proficiency.

This has been, in my opinion, of tremendous benefit in living on and traveling to multiple continents.

I had an advisor whom I admired who was competent in some 12 or more languages. I was so jealous. I guess I probably still am.

That's very interesting. However I am not sure whether being middle/upper class has any association with being able to speak english. Frankly I don't think there is a class distinction in China (despite an economic one maybe).

I would like to point out if helpful that in China our education of the English language is much more geared towards reading rather than speaking. Students are generally equipped with enough to read and understand given adequate time but probably not speaking. However regional difference also may exist (first tier cities vs second, third etc). I used to feel ashamed about our english level in east asia in general. But then again now I think about people in the anglosphere where French and Spanish are largely taught but no one would expect a large proportion will be able to converse in them :)

> Until you travel you don't even have the slightest clue what a privilege it is to speak English

Agreed; almost everywhere, you can find someone who knows some English. The other time I realized who a privilege it is was looking for a second language to learn. There isn't a clear answer if you already know English. The English privilege you might completely miss is that, outside of China, the internet is English-first.

Not to nitpick, please don't use the term "broken English".

You are getting downvoted because it's completely unclear why the term "broken english" is offensive or not fit for use. You also did not propose an alternative.

I promise my use of it was entirely descriptive and not at all a judgement of the person speaking it. I have the utmost respect for anyone who can communicate an idea in another language at any level. I see my self as deficient for not being able to do so and think of myself as lesser and a poor citizen of the world for only speaking english.

The term broken means something was once whole and is no longer. There's plenty of alternatives like non native speaker, beginner speaker, etc. I'm generally extremely non PC but this one is a pet peeve of mine.

As a native English speaker living in Russia, it really made me realize how difficult and nerve racking language learning and speaking is. I don't consider my Russian skills "broken", just very incomplete; a WIP.

Broken in the sense "broken line" (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=broken+line&ia=web); not "once whole", rather "with breaks (pauses/gaps) in it". Like when a conference breaks for lunch, it doesn't mean the conference was whole and now is inferior.

How could I who learned English after childhood strive for greatness without distinguishing real from broken, i.e with potential for repair?

There is nothing that is equal in this world

My friend met someone travelling who consciously focussed on creating new and interesting experiences and connections with people, rather than actual places. It led him to some pretty awesome and amazing adventures.