Fourteen months into our world trip, we found ourselves towards the end of our time in Asia and realizing that we had some tough decisions to make.
If you’ve been travelling for an extended period, hopefully, you have spent most of your time in what we call the Discovery Phase of travel. A time filled with the desire to explore new places, embrace adventure, and absorb the learning that goes along with it.
Like us, you may occasionally bounce between the Adjustment Phase, when arriving in a new country and the Waning Desire Phase, after a few busy weeks. But the Reevaluating Phase may be new to you. It was to us.
Learn More: What’s it Really like to Travel the World: The Five Phases of Travel
The Reevaluating Phase
The Reevaluating Phase can be as simple as adjusting your itinerary, deciding to shorten or lengthen your stay in a particular country or visit an otherwise unplanned country, or as large as returning home sooner than planned. Ultimately, this phase is triggered by a situation or event that will cause you to pause, reflect, and reconsider your next steps.
Common Triggers:
• Financial concerns: Budget is a huge part of travelling and often dictates how long and where you visit. When planning extended travel, it is challenging to predict all the costs, and therefore, you may find yourself needing to adjust your plans for financial reasons.
• Homesickness: Homesickness can be transient, triggered by an event like birthdays or holidays, or a lasting feeling of longing for regular routines and social connection with family and friends. Some can enjoy themselves despite the feelings; for others, it’s a driving force to return home early.
• Work and/or School Commitments and Opportunities: New job opportunities could come up while away, or you might realize that working abroad is more challenging than expected. In either case, you may decide to cut your trip short.
• Travel Fatigue: After years of planning and excitement, it’s hard to imagine that you could be tired of travelling, but it happens. Travelling for extended periods can be exhausting. It’s common to find yourself wanting to settle in one place or craving a piece of home.
• Unmet Expectations: You and your family have spent years dreaming of travelling abroad, believing that you would love the nomadic lifestyle, but in reality, it’s not for you (or one member of the family). As disappointing as it may be, adjusting your itinerary may be necessary.
• Unforeseen Circumstances: Several issues can fall into this category, such as unexpected personal illness, family obligations back home, and safety concerns in particular countries (political instability, natural disasters, visa issues). All of which will cause you to pause and reassess your plans.
Our Experience
Midway through our time in Asia, we began planning the last leg of our trip and realized we had some tough decisions to make. Before leaving, we intended to travel full-time for two years, but in the end, we returned home after 17 months. For us, the driving forces to cut our trip short were school commitments and financial constraints.
Due to COVID restrictions, our departure date was pushed back 8 months, resulting in us leaving and returning in the middle of the school year. Our older son was starting high school in the fall and wanted to be home in September for the start of school. Joining his class mid-year was not ideal and therefore triggered the conversation of altering our itinerary and returning home sooner than expected.
In addition, we evaluated where we were with our budget. Each time you move, the more costly it is. Transportation costs were our highest expenditure while away. We realized we had a choice. We could visit several countries and cut back on activities, or visit a select few and have more experiences. We opted for the latter, choosing five more countries before heading home.
Readjusting Expectations
There isn’t any one solution to get past this phase other than self-reflection and discussion. Ultimately, you must decide whether the benefits of returning home early outweigh what is gained by travelling.
You may feel a sense of loss or disappointment, especially if different family members want different things. This was my experience at first. It took time to come to terms with the fact that we would not fulfil our goal of travelling for two years and would not reach all the places we planned to go. Then one day it dawned on me, this wouldn’t be the last time we travel. It’s not over. This trip was just the beginning. Once I realized this, and we settled on a plan, the excitement of travel returned, even more so knowing that we were heading into the last leg of our adventure.
Months in Review
Our Biggest Challenge
Our biggest challenge in Asia was readjusting to full-time travel after living in Croatia for two months. Apart from a few day trips, we lived a regular life in Split, enrolling the boys in water polo and tennis lessons, and taking time to catch up on schoolwork. Being settled in one place was a great experience, but we were thrown back into the Adjustment Phase when we landed in Vietnam. It took us several weeks to adjust to life on the road again, adapting to long travel days, new cultures, and local foods.
Our Best Experience
The months we spent in Asia were full of bucket list wildlife adventures. We ventured on a tiger safari in Ranthambore National Park, India (Jackson’s pick), visited the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Reserve in Cambodia to see pangolins (Mason’s pick) and took a day trip to Komodo National Park to see the legendary lizards.
These were all incredible highlights of our trip, but the one that stands out was our two-day trek for orangutans in the Sumatran Jungle, Indonesia.
Looking Ahead
Reaching the Reevaluating Phase doesn’t mean the end of the adventure—it means you’ve been on the road long enough to know what matters most to your family. For us, that meant shifting from chasing a two-year milestone to making intentional choices about how we wanted to spend our final months abroad. The excitement returned once we realigned our expectations, and we embraced our remaining time with renewed energy. As we packed our bags for the Americas, we carried with us not just our backpacks, but a better understanding of how to travel with purpose and when to pivot.
Check out the last few months of our World Trip as we headed to Panama, Bolivia, and Mexico.
Ready to Get Started?
Check out these related posts to help plan your World Trip:
• Building a World Trip Itinerary
• How much does a World Trip cost?
• This or That? Saving to Make it Happen
