28 Regrets That People Who Travel Will Never Have
Life: It’s about maximizing opportunities and minimizing regrets. It’s about accepting our destined fate and appreciating the moments. It’s about taking chances and learning from mistakes. So why the hell are you sitting around, making excuses and waiting for a day that will never come?
In a time when you have absolutely nothing to lose (in the grander scheme of things) and no responsibilities but to take care of yourself, why aren’t you going out and exploring the world?
Why aren’t you using your newfound freedom to cross oceans and walk the deserts? Why aren’t you scraping all your money together to get a plane ticket to Paris and drink coffee on the Champs-Élysées? Why aren’t you escaping to the beaches and walking the cobblestone streets? What’s wrong with you?
For some reason, people think they will regret the things they did much more than the things they didn’t do. They think they will miss the money they spent 10 years from now much more than remember the time they spent traveling the world. What these people fail to realize is that we are only going to be this young and this free once in a lifetime. You won’t be in your twenties for much longer, when you have the entire world in front of you and nothing to hold you back from grabbing it.
Do not get sucked into the idea that life is about getting a job and accepting life as nine-to-five with 14 vacation days. Your life doesn’t have to be like that, at least not yet. You have the rest of your life to return to standardized civilization and get the nine-to-five job your parents always dreamed for you.
You need to use this time to explore your passions, to be adventurous. You need to be open to opportunities and new friends, to feel the ocean beneath your toes and the sand on your back. You need to see people with different viewpoints, different ways of life. You need to give yourself a chance to miss home. If you think you are going to regret not taking that job or making that extra money, take a moment to consider everything you will regret if you do.
1. You never used another currency.
2. You never got lost on cobblestone streets.
3. You never met a stranger on a train who changed your view of life.
4. You never drove on the "wrong" side of the road.
5. You never ate fish caught in the ocean you were just swimming in.
6. You never danced like those people you see in the movies.
7. You never attended a riot of the people.
8. You never ordered coffee in another language.
9. You never had sex in a foreign land.
10. You never acquired a collection of stamps in your passport.
11. You never dipped your toes in an ocean that stretched across the world.
12. You never ate something without knowing what it was.
13. You never ordered something you couldn’t pronounce.
14. You never took a train across borders.
15. You never got high in Amsterdam.
16. You never watched the sun set over another country.
17. You never swam in a body of water you couldn’t pronounce.
18. You never touched tongues with someone who speaks in a different one.
19. You never stepped in a church older than your own country.
20. You never sang someone else’s national anthem.
21. You never watched a game in a language you didn’t understand.
22. You never climbed a roof to see a new view.
23. You never sat in rooms that existed before Christ.
24. You never took the photos you’ve seen in magazines.
25. You never sat alone watching the people of another world.
26. You never walked for hours with no direction.
27. You never went to parties where you knew no one.
28. You never stayed in a hostel with five strangers.
