Transitioning from vacation mode into traveller mode

I’ve been in the UK for six nights now. I think I’ve placed myself into this precariously dangerous place because I had to overcome all the butterflies prior to leaving Australia, and I’ve arrived to experience the epitome of vacation mode. I don’t feel like I’ve embarked upon my backpacking journey. I feel like I’m on a vacation. I spent five nights in London with a friend who came down from Scotland to visit me, met up with a couple of other friends, and now I’ve gone back to Edinburgh and I’m here staying with the creature comforts of home for just over a week. I almost feel as though I could just go back to Australia after my time here and say that I’ve enjoyed a lovely vacation.

The Thames; London, UK

However that isn’t what I have to do – I have to leave here and get myself into the space of being resourceful, looking after myself, not having a friend to talk to, the barriers of not speaking the same language. The back of my brain remembers why I decided to embark upon this adventure but as I sit here with clear wi-fi signal, drinking coffee and with Loose Women on in the background, it all seems pretty far away.

I did my best to keep my brain in backpacker mode in London – it would’ve been easy to have sat back, played dumb and allowed my friends from the UK to figure out where we were and where we were going. But I made sure that I always knew where we were going, didn’t just follow them onto the tube mindlessly. I kept my budget in mind – advocating the purchase of simple sandwich dinners and filling up on the hostel breakfast. And I’ve told myself that regardless of how cold it is here in Scotland, I’m not allowed to just cower on my friend’s couch and play online and watch movies.

There’s a comfort that comes with my current trip and the people who I have around the world to experience these same comforts with, even just for a couple of days at a time along the way. Just as I’m starting to feel homesick and crave familiarity, I’ll be able to see someone I know. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I think that even while budget backpacking, it’s important to take time out from that lifestyle, to give yourself time to just relax and enjoy creature comforts. When I first went travelling in 2008, this for me was manifested by seeing a film in Budapest when I was too exhausted to keep walking around, going to every Disney store I encountered, spending a week in Nice where I wrote for 75% of the time. 2010 was more alike to this trip, with smatterings of meeting up with friends.  But I think the danger isn’t so much in taking time out – but it is in getting into the right mindframe when the time out is over. I can see myself wanting to spend my time in Lisbon hanging around the hostel rather than exploring the city, for example.

However once I leave my friend’s place here in Scotland, I need to get my mind in the right place. Make the most of the experience – it isn’t so much that it is ‘once in a lifetime’ but just that I can lay in bed on Facebook any old time. If I don’t see within a half hour of her posting it that my friend I went to high school with is at the movies, it won’t be the end of the world. A disconnect from my former life, temporarily, doesn’t mean a permanent disconnection. Anyone who really cares about me will make sure that they contact me personally with any update on them or their life, rather than just posting it generally on Facebook or Twitter.

And if all else fails, a glance of my quickly depleting bank balance every now and again should help to keep me aware of why I'm here and the need to seize the moment!