Travel - a must or no?

The tour guide at the Nepal tour I was in, once said, "you people from developed countries work very hard everyday, earn lot's of money, after working so hard you need to de-stress, so you spend money to come to  non developed countries like Nepal to de-stress"


I also have a friend who had never gone on a holiday in his whole life.  Firstly, he thinks that it's a waste of money.  Secondly, his idea of a holiday is to laze around and do nothing, he has yet to to find anyone who can do that with him.  Lately, I saw that he drives quite a luxurious car, comparatively.  Different priorities, I guess.

At that time, I didn't agree that spending on holidays is a waste of money.  At that time, I was earning a fixed monthly salary, I thought it makes perfect sense to fork out that "little" percentage of our "hard earned money" to have some fun in other parts of the world.  After all, we have paid leave to clear, etc.


As you may have guessed, I've not gone to any holiday destination since 2012.

An ex-colleague called to ask if I'm interested to go to a alumni of sort in a resort in Philippines.  Many ex-colleagues from different parts of the world will be there, it will be fun to catch up, bla bla.  My spontaneous answer was.."no thank you, now that I don't earn a fixed income, I watch my expenses quite carefully, I'd like to keep whatever extra cash I have for more other things that I'd like to spend on ..from sports/gym related, occassional splurge on food/beverages, unexpected expenses, so, travelling is not one of the priorities for now".

I, myself, was surprised by the spontaneous answer.

Without realising it, I now agree with my friend who thinks that travelling can be a waste of money.  Think about it, the Nepal trip probably costed RM5,000 or more, I think.  Those days, without much commitment, I don't feel much forking out RM5,000.  Now?! RM5,000 can be the margin of one hard earned project.

Oh boy..what have I turned myself into :D

I don't mean that I will not ever travel again.  I'll have to go for cheaper and economical ones, probably local self-drive or nearer SEA destinations like Thailand or Indonesia.

Secondly, I'd choose my travel partners too.  Earlier part of 2012, I rejected an ex school mate to go to Bali or Bandung with a few other school mates.    I was being very honest by saying..that, now that I don't have much travel budget, I'll have to choose very carefully (kiasu-ly).   I have not met these school mates for over 20 years..and we were not that close in school anyway. Sorry..I was bad, I know : /



So, what am I trying to get at here?

I'm not sure..just trashing out some thoughts..

Do we really need to spend thousands to go and visit these far away countries?
Do we really need to go far away to relax and de-stress?


Well, it's probably a case of what we have and what we want.

When we work very hard, we barely have time to to stop and rest, that's why our employers give us paid leave, and hence, using our hard earned money we end up going for holidays.

Alternatively, going away for holidays is a good way to get away from our day to day routine.  Just to let the mind relax and wander to a new horizon.

But then..now that I'm out of the rat race, I don't really have that urgent need to de-stress. Yes?


Hmm..no conclusion.
Lol.

At the end of the day...it boils down to how much extra cash we have!