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While the decision to take a round-the-world trip might be the exciting culmination of a lot of hard work and deep thought on your part, it might catch some of your friends and family off-guard. And for some people, it might seem like a totally bad idea even after they’ve had a chance to get used to it. If you’re lucky, the people in your life who think you’re making a giant mistake will be far outnumbered by the people who cheer you on, but what if they don’t?
BootsnAll member VicBC has been on the receiving end of some pretty negative feedback ever since he started telling people he was going to take four months off after graduating from high school to travel around Europe. Some of the comments he’s gotten include:
“Are you even thinking about the future? You’re going to be a light year behind everyone else that’s going to school.”
“Why not wait? You can still travel while in college or when you have a career.”
“Why waste 12 grand for just a short amount of happiness?”
VicBC’s not feeling pressured to change his mind based on this feedback, but is asking the BootsnAll membership whether it’s worth it to argue with these people or not. And if it’s worth trying to reason with them, what’s the best argument to use? You can add your thoughts to the thread on the BootsnAll boards – and while you’re there, check out the new look and feel of the BootsnAll Message Boards which just got unveiled this week!
January 24th, 2009 at 7:32 am
[...] While the decision to take a round-the-world trip might be the exciting culmination of a lot of hard work and deep thought on your part, it might catch some of your friends and family off-guard. More [...]
January 25th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I leave for my 4 month backpacking trip in March and it seems like ever since I have told my friends and family, all I hear is negative comments. The big three negative criticisms is, “Why now?, wait until you have a career,” “Why do you want to spend all this money,” “What if something happens to your safety?” I try to explain why I am traveling and dispel these concerns and have a constructive conversation with family and friends who give you negative feedback, but I find this does more harm than good. You are sharing two completely view points, and for others, long term budget travel is not within their realm of reality, much of which is due to a lack of information or misinformation on their part. So how do I deal with it? I accept their positions and take it in and do not argue, joke with the negative critics, but really it is just a matter of tuning the negative feedback out. Sure I get bombarded with it everyday, but really I am doing this trip for me and not them, so I listen to it, but move forward anyways and smile knowing that I am living my life the way I want to live it.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
My parents were dissappointed that I didn’t seem to want to use my university degree after graduating. They tried to encourage me to go back for grad school or get a job in my field. I wasn’t interested. I spent a lot of time explaining to them that is I wasn’t dependent on them for money that I could do what I want. I think it’s a lot harder if you need your parents cash.
The biggest thing that got them to give me slack was saying that I was going out into the world to collect life experiences. In the long run whatever I decided to do with my life these Life experiences were going to make me a better person. Also, I got them to live the country for the first time. They came and visited me in the Netherlands. They suddenly saw how addcitive travel can be.