Am I making excuses by not travelling on my own ?

Post Reply New Topic

I feel like life is being wasted because I don't get to travel as much as I wanted to. I've been only to places like Amsterdam, Antwerp, Krakow, Rome and Berlin only with family (when they have planned it and not on my own initiative and agreed to go because I wanted to go) and not with friends as I have few friends and those friends are not the going-out-types. I'd like to go to New York or maybe Naples but I just won't go on my own despite some people saying its great on your own.

I remember a question put on Quora where someone was saying they wanted to travel but had no one to travel with and said that it sucks doing things alone, especially eating alone. It annoyed me a bit when someone responded saying ''If you want to travel, travel. You sound like the sort of person who can't even go to the supermarket alone. I've travelled to 25 countries on my own and its wonderful, you don't argue over where to go, how time to spend in each place, where to eat and what trips to take. You are the boss. Try it and stop using other people as an excuse to stay at home.''

Last edited by chris1989 on 17 May 2022, 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You've been to a lot more places than I have, so at least you have traveled a lot in your life and you're only 32-33.

Traveling alone is not for everyone. To travel alone you need the right confidence and know what you're doing. I'd be useless traveling alone because I find reading maps and transport schedules very difficult and confusing. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one. I often get stressed at airports and need a bit of guidance from whoever I'm with.

So you're like millions of other people who wouldn't go on holiday alone. It is not unusual.

Ahh yes, the old, "You way of being is invalid/wrong since you are not identical to me" thing.

Yet us Aspies are considered to be the 1s who lack empathy & have black & white thinking

The only traveling I ever done by myself has been visiting my parents or visiting my girlfriend before I moved in with her. I've only traveled by Greyhound because it's cheaper & the idea of flying really freaks me out. I hate traveling by myself even thou I'm somewhat familiar with the layovers & transfers on the route. I have a low vision disorder, get confused easily, & need time to process things some, plus I have anxiety about it all as well. It's supposed to be a two day ride but my last couple trips took half a day longer cuz they didn't have a driver for a few hours & I missed the transfer I was supposed to make. I haven't visited my parents in a few years partly cuz I don't want to take a two & a half day ride. I want to try traveling by train but I'd hate to try a new method of travel by myself & my girlfriend hasn't been able to partly cuz of her health issues, family needing her, & we have a pet chinchilla with health issues who needs special care & we don't know who could take proper care of him

I'm not sure if I'm making excuses or not here. I do make lots of excuses for things but I also have very valid reasons that others don't understand or care about & I get accused of making excuses

Tour group

There are advantages and disadvantages of traveling alone

Plenty of people, for example me, have not gone to as many countries as you

That does not mean that you "wasted" your life

Unless everyone else also "wasted" their lives

Your time, cash, and energy. You choose, travel or do not travel. But "life" goes on and on and on


I am 39. Zero friends. Single and zero children. Minimum wage job

I could not afford to travel if I wanted. Plenty of people can't afford to travel or don't want to

Are you able to travel on your own? As in, can you navigate in airports, get to your hotel and get around in your destination on your own? (Use of google maps and other helpful things is allowed.) If the answer is no, then there's no excuses here and it's just a fact that you can't travel on your own. But if the answer is yes, then pick a place, gather the money you need and go. Try traveling alone once, and if it turns out to be too boring for you that way, don't do it again. That way you'll know and won't wonder about what ifs.

I've never really traveled with friends either, just with family or alone. Alone I've only been traveling within the country though aside from one time when I went to Sweden on my own by ship. Wanted to go to Ireland actually, but I chickened out on flying alone and thus chose Sweden instead.
The best part of traveling alone is getting to do what I want to when I want to (assuming I find my way to the place I want to go to; that's a bit of a challenge sometimes, but I always manage lol), but traveling in a group has it's hard to explain good sides. Or well, to be more exact, traveling as a pair, not a group. When there's two of us (me and my sister, usually), it's easier to agree on where to go and what to do, but a group is a hassle. Four is already too many for me.

There's a difference between can't and won't. I think the OP is capable but doesn't want to travel alone so won't. There is nothing wrong with that. Lots of NT people are able to travel alone but won't because they don't want to alone. It's quite understandable.

How do you know the difference between can't & won't Lots of people could travel alone but would majorly struggle at it & it might be risky for them to do. Whenever a disabled person talks about how they can't do something or have major problems doing something, some non-disabled person tells them how they're making excuses cuz some other disabled person has done it. For example if I talk about how I never had any desire to go to college cuz I majorly struggled in school due to dyslexia, ADD, other related learning problems, & being very nearsighted even with glasses cuz of of a very rare low vision disorder, someone would tell me how I'm just making excuses since plenty of people with dyslexia & ADD & other learning problems have graduated college & some blind people have so I could do it if I just tried

______________

Fire blossom

Sometimes the distinction between "can't" and "won't" is foggy

Every situation is different

For example, I "can" take the bus to work (and I have done so many times)

But if some extreme situation occurs (like I get raped or get run over by a car), I "can't" go to work

There is no way that I could prevent or even predict things like that

In your case, a lot of things, beyond your control, could happen if you go travelling. Especially if you don't have much experience traveling alone or if it is not an English speaking country. Some other countries do things certain ways.

Sometimes it would be better to have someone else with you (safety in numbers )

However, not everyone knows how to think rationally (nor do they have to). Some people keep overreacting at every slightest thing. Some people are not trustworthy. Some people are just not helpful (nor do they have to be)


You don't have to travel if you don't want to



_____________


Nick


You don't have to go to college

Nobody could force you to go to college

Especially since the recession and Covid, there are plenty of good reasons to not go to college

Plenty of people with bachelor degrees earn minimum wage

More specifically, my worthless corpse, earned a Bachelor's degree in Cognitive Science and Associates in Accounting

All of the jobs I have had were minimum wage to 1.5x minimum wage

None of the jobs required high school diploma, much less college

I have applied for plenty of jobs and gotten made redundant many times



Also it appears to me, on Wrong planet, plenty of posters claim they are unemployed, underemployed or long term employed, and plenty of people claim they are working jobs way below their education


Plenty of people default on college loans


College is not everything it is cracked up to be

College is not magical or special


One way to think about it, is that college is a money making business that sells bachelor degrees

Just like restaurants are a money making business that sell meals

With or without college , "life" goes on and on and on and on and on

I used to have the same problem, I think I still have it a bit tbh I don't really like going out alone by myself without my husband anymore but I will do anyway.

I think it's some kind of anxiety where you don't feel safe in case something happens and you'll be left alone to deal with it by yourself and when you're autistic this can be daunting because you don't want it to go even more wrong because of your social ability.

I've noticed though, when you actually HAVE to go somewhere alone say work but you have to get a train to another town alone at first it's awful and you feel totally lost but when you actually do it a few times this anxiety just disappears and you think why did I not just do this in the first place? It's weird and I also had it many times in life, when I was 18 I randomly got on an airplane to Lithuania to go see my gaming friend totally at random and I absolutely s**t myself the whole time I was travelling and even went 4 hours early to the airport and sat infront of the flight boards constantly, but it actually wasn't that bad I think internally I was just over panicking.

Maybe with us autistic people we over panic at basic stuff like this because we've had our hand held a lot of the way already and think we're not adult enough to do this alone or something.

To be honest though I do regret not travelling alone more because it really is a freeing experience, you can do what you want when you want and the massive bonus is NO ONE knows who you are so if you look weird then so what lol

I can't tell the difference between his "can't" and "won't", but he probably can. Like, if he knows he'll freeze up and can't do a thing when something really unexpected happens at home, then it's safe to reason that would also be the case abroad. While it doesn't literally make it impossible to travel alone and thus doesn't necessarily make it a can't -situation, it still doesn't sound good, so counting it under can't instead of won't sounds fair to me.

I seem to feel I maybe am ''able'' to travel alone but I still feel I can't because I have few friends to go abroad with, I have no partner to go abroad with and I don't always feel like wanting to keep going abroad with family all the time though. I can't get myself into that travelling mindset on my own initiative because I don't know if that's because I've grown up with the habit of parents taking me abroad to places whenever they have planned them and I've stuck to that habit. I don't know whether its because of that habit that I don't go abroad on my own even now as an adult or what ? I don't know whether it is to do with not being able to navigate around an airport and get to a hotel or get around my destination and worried about language barriers with people in other countries as to where to go, what to do, etc because I was used to my parents having to do all of that when I went there with them.