I’ve been travel blogging for about a month now. (yay me!)
I love blogging, I love sharing my travel experiences and posting itineraries so that others may find cheap travel options as well. People deserve to know that it can be affordable and accessible at whichever income you earn. However, is MANY people’s reality that even with the cheapest travel options they still may not be able to afford even a weekend trip somewhere close? Definitely.
I realize my privilege at being able to travel as much as I do, have a Canadian passport to do it with and a steady job. I don’t believe in being ‘lucky’ to travel because when I was working 50-70 hours every week to travel that was not luck, it was a lot of work. ‘Luck’ is when you win a trip for free, not work your ass off for it.
With this privilege that I acknowledge, I am VERY sick of how irresponsible some travel bloggers are with their suggestions. How dare you tell people to ‘quit your job and just travel’?? Where do you even come off with the audacity to tell those who are fortunate enough to have found work in these shitty economies to ‘just quit’?
Although I am happy that some people were able to quit their jobs to go travel and are able to survive doing it – I don’t think it should be pushed so feverishly on readers.
A day doesn’t go by without me seeing a fellow travel blogger telling people how they quit their job, sold their items, traveled, found odd jobs bla bla bla. Whole thing screams privilege.
You good looking? You’re middle-upper class? Live at home with your mom? Live in a city that ISN’T expensive as Toronto/NY/LA? Are white? Oh — funny how it seems people who fit into these categories can’t wait to tell people to QUIT a job. Get the hell out of here.
I find this irresponsible and just reeking of social privilege.
How can you tell a millenial living in a place like Toronto who may have a job to afford living in this expensive place to quit their job for travel? I love travel just as much as the next person, but seriously? I see the breadth that travel can bring to your life and contribute to your personal growth, but can I really put ‘was in 10 countries in 10 months’ on a resume? Will all those passport stamps mean a damn thing when I come home to Toronto at ANOTHER rent increase I can’t afford to pay?
Those of you who were able to quit your job and do odd jobs while traveling, I do salute you. This is a great accomplishment and you should be proud of yourselves. You can definitely talk about how YOU got there, but you have to recognize you may also be an anomaly.
I recently read this piece on the webpage ‘The Observers’ that had a headline saying ‘BEG-PACKERS: WHITE TOURISTS WHO BEG IN SOUTHEAST ASIA‘ – pardon my Toronto vernacular but, ARE YOU DUMB?
The gall to be a white person traveling to a foreign country and begging on the street so people can fund your travel? TRAVEL IS A PRIVILEGE. The people who are begging on the road alongside you need it for their families, for food, for medicine. It made me sick reading this.
That story ties in with this whole ‘quit your job and travel’ B.S. because if these people were employed and accordingly planned their travel and budgets, this would NOT be a thing. (I realize medical and family emergencies happen while traveling – literally not one of these stories was about someone needing to beg to get home in case of those, just for furthering their travels.)
Share your experience if you were fortunate enough to quit your job and enjoy the pleasure of traveling. That is the whole point of blogging. Sharing. Giving people extended imaginations. Do not encourage actions that may be detrimental to peoples incomes and livelihood.
– Mirna