Behind The Scenes of Life on The Road

The life of a tour guide.

It’s March 31st and I am sitting in my hotel room #splurging on a $20 room tonight to have my own space and decompress after guiding a back to back tour and what I have been playfully referring to as #nodaysoffmarch.

Though while leading tours the long days and “on 24/7” responsibility can weigh heavily and prove challenging at times, I love my job as a tour guide and I am choosing to live this hectic, wild, busy, on the go lifestyle BECAUSE of the unconventionality of it all. I am so fortunate that I typically get a break between the lovely chaos of guiding 2-week country long trips. However, I also want to highlight some of things people don’t consider when they think about living a life full-time on the road (…maybe I will write a Traveling vs Vacation post sometime down the line but those are thoughts for another day…). I love this lifestyle, and in this post I will share a few of the instagram-reel worthy moments but I also want to dive deep into the sacrifices it takes to be living what so many people DM me is “their dream life” without considering what it really takes.

This month I traversed the entirety of the country of Vietnam not once but TWICE.
I am in 4 cities every single week. FOUR DIFFERENT CITIES EVERY SINGLE WEEK! This month I did that 4 weeks in a row. The longest I have been in one place since August (8 months ago) is five days. The packing and unpacking is almost constant. There are moments where the smallest and simplest of comforts feel like faraway luxuries in a distant land. I live out of my backpack with no base, no space or place to call mine, to spread out my things, to lie down. How a simple phone call catch up with family or friends back home can take literal weeks of planning ahead and even then fall through because of a bad wifi connection, things coming up last minute, and that pesky time difference.

To some people this life is their absolute worst nightmare, and I realize that and would never try to convince everyone that this is for them. Even for those who claim they are so jealous and wish they could do it too, (to which my response is always YOU CAN!), it still would certainly not be for anyone. For me, this life allows me to pursue my passions for people and travel, constantly exploring, using even every ounce of my free time (and $) to strap on my backpack and travel around, However, like anything, it is absolutely not without sacrifice.

Though I have (now) happily left behind the conventional 9-5 corporate lifestyle, not able to grasp on to the concept of 10 days off a year when there is so much of the world to get to know, I am quite literally sacrificing all forms of comfort and stability. I am a young woman with impressive past internships and jobs, a college degree, and I am now making the lowest income from any job I have ever had since I was 15 years old. Sometimes it’s laughable when I think about it, but then I keep laughing because most of the time out here I am so damn happy with the simplicity and bare minimum of it all and the feeling that I am truly LIVING as life is intended to be lived.

There are moments where I am literally and metaphorically soaring, high on life: gazing out at beautiful Halong bay from the top deck of a luxury cruise, sitting at the top of Southeast Asia’s longest rollercoaster that runs through a dense forest, feeling my heart pound standing at the top of a 25m waterfall ready to abseil into the chilly waters below. In these moments I can only smile and think “this is my job, this IS my job, this is my JOB!!!!”

I am constantly meeting, gorgeous (inside and out), accented, down to earth, amazing, inspiring people from around the world. The hellos and handshakes are as frequent and natural as breathing at this point. On the flip side, the goodbyes are just as frequent and no matter how “used to” them I am, some goodbye conversations and hugs feel like mini heartbreaks. Sometimes these goodbyes feel like big, painful heartbreaks. I have become so comfortable with letting really amazing people go, and though it’s never easy, I think it has built a type of resilience and strength and adaptability that only this life can train you to know. And sometimes I question if this attitude is really a strength at all, letting incredible people go and coming to terms with it. Either way, I love feeling the power of connection, though sometimes only days or hours long, with people I know I can call friends, adventure partners, and people to visit around the globe for life.

Since I traded in the blazer for a backpack, and bought a one way ticket to Southeast Asia, I have realized, for my personal journey and growth, the best lessons wouldn’t be learned by climbing the corporate ladder, rather, the best lessons have been a few giant and scary steps outside of my comfort zone. Though I have felt every emotion since this transition, ranging from anxiety to self doubt and fear of the unknown, I wouldn’t trade any moment of past stability and comfort for the places, people, and experiences that have ignited my curiosity to know the world and call many places home in this lifetime.

Living a life on the road may not be for everyone, and who knows maybe it won’t be for me forever either! Regardless, I hope to inspire others to not be afraid to live unconventionally at times, and follow their deepest passions.

Fueled by bus ride iPhone note journaling, a day off, and a new month ahead.