The Sh*t No One Tells You About Traveling
Travel looks magical on Instagram. Smooth drone shots over beaches, people smiling with perfect tans and coconuts in hand, or backpackers writing captions about how life-changing their journey has been. But let me hit you with some truth: travel is incredible, yes — it can shape you in ways you never expect. But it’s also messy, exhausting, and straight-up disgusting at times. Think you know yourself? Go on a month-long adventure and you’ll be humbled real quick.
If you want the real deal before you pack your bags for your eat, pray, love-style adventure, here it is.
Doing Everything Will Burn You Out
Nobody tells you that trying to see and do everything is the fastest way to ruin your trip. You think you are going to hit every temple, every market, every hidden beach in one week. What actually happens is you wake up on day five and you are dead on your feet, irritated at everyone around you, and staring at something amazing without even caring because you are too busy thinking about where you have to be next.
When you overpack your days, you lose the ability to appreciate the very things you flew across the world to see. Slow down. Less is more.
Remember You’re a Guest
Guess what? You’re not the main character here. You’re a guest in someone else’s country, culture, and way of life. The biggest mistake travelers make is dragging their strong views, rigid expectations, or sense of entitlement along for the ride. That’s a one-way ticket to frustration.
The real remedy for so many of the wild experiences you’ll face is simple: humility. Leave your judgments at the door, step into situations with an open mind, and remember that things don’t have to work the way they do back home. Trains will run differently. Food will be prepared differently. People will speak and move through the world differently.
You can’t control most of it. What you can control is your reaction. If you approach it with curiosity instead of criticism, gratitude instead of grumbling, you’ll find that even the “worst” days can turn into some of your most valuable lessons.
Transportation Will Break You
You think you know what a delay is… until you’re sitting on a cracked plastic chair in a sweltering bus station for six hours with zero explanation. Airports with no working monitors. Ferry docks that look abandoned. Sleeper buses with “beds” shorter than your body and air that reeks of sweat and diesel. When a four-hour travel day turns into twelve, spent on a tile floor with fifty other backpackers crammed into the same room.
Ever tried jumping in and out of a moving taxi with all your gear? Or taking a public bus in the middle of nowhere where not a single person speaks English? These are the moments you’re not sure if you’re crazy or just part of a plot twist you never signed up for.
There are terminals that feel like saunas, and flights that leave when they feel like it — not when they’re scheduled. If you don’t go in with zero expectations, you will lose your mind.
Bathrooms Are a Gamble
Let’s talk bathrooms. Because no one ever does. Some are fine. Some make you question every life decision you have ever made. Squat toilets with no paper. Sinks that barely drip. Showers that smell like mildew. Bathrooms with doors that don’t lock or worse, no doors at all.
I have been in hostel bathrooms where the walls were wet with who knows what, where the drain is clogged with hair that looks older than you, and where the smell hits you like a slap in the face. It is part of the deal. Pack wet wipes. Bring your own soap. And for the love of all things holy, wear flip-flops in shared showers.
When You Are Sick, You Are SICK
Food poisoning, heat exhaustion, dehydration — it is not if, it is when. You will get sick on the road at some point. And there will be a day where you are stuck in a cheap room with a toilet that barely flushes, sweating through the sheets, wondering if you should have just stayed home.
Trying to push through it only makes things worse. That day you planned for hiking a volcano? Forget it. Rest. Drink water. Let your body recover. Otherwise you will turn one bad day into an entire week of misery.
Other Travelers Are Not Always Great
Here is another ugly truth. Not everyone you meet on the road is considerate. There will be that one guy in the hostel dorm who snores like a chainsaw, eats fried chicken in bed at three in the morning, and leaves greasy bones on the nightstand. There will be people who blast music on overnight buses, who never clean up after themselves, who hog the bathroom for an hour while twenty of you wait.
You will meet people who smell like they have not touched soap in weeks and people who treat staff like garbage. And then there are the ones who will steal your food from the communal fridge or your towel from the drying rack and smile at you the next day like nothing happened.
The Spoonies I met on my Ha Giang Loop trip in Vietnam were hands down one of my favorite groups of strangers to travel with. But trust me — it doesn’t always go down that way and i have plenty of stories of the polar opposite experiences.
Rooms Are Not Always Like the Photos
That beautiful hostel you saw online might look different in person. Mold in the corners. Stained sheets. Bugs that seem a little too comfortable sharing your bed. There are rooms that smell like sewage, rooms with no windows, and rooms where the “air conditioning” is just a rusty fan making noise in the corner.
You get what you pay for most of the time, but sometimes even the pricey ones have surprises. Check reviews. Ask around. And still, be ready for whatever you walk into.
Not Everyone Travels Like You Do
You might be out there for culture and adventure. The person in the bunk above you might be out there to party until sunrise every night. Someone else might be on a wellness trip and asleep before you even eat dinner. It’s easy to feel out of sync, or even alone in a crowd.
That’s okay. Travel styles are personal. Let people do their thing and focus on yours. But here’s the flip side: not everyone you meet will be your vibe. Some travelers will test your patience — the ones who blast music on buses, snore like chainsaws, or treat staff like they’re disposable. It happens.
The key is not to let a few bad travelers ruin your adventure. Because for every one of them, there are ten others who will completely make your trip. the kind of people who turn into lifelong friends, who laugh with you through the chaos, who share meals and stories that you’ll remember forever.
So stand up for yourself when you need to, but stay open. The best memories on the road often come from the people you least expect
social media lies alot
You have seen the perfect photo of that famous beach. What you have not seen is the pile of washed‑up trash sitting just out of frame or the line of sweaty tourists waiting their turn to stand in the exact same spot for the exact same shot. What you have not seen is the two hours someone spent editing the sky to look bluer or cloning out the stray dog wandering through the background.
Real travel is not staged. It is gritty. It is raw. It is not always beautiful, and that is exactly what makes it memorable. That photo of the waterfall does not show the hour-long wait in the mud while leeches crawled over your ankles. That sunrise on a mountain peak does not show the freezing cold, the wet socks, and the fact that you almost turned back halfway up because you were exhausted.
Instagram makes it look effortless, like every meal is plated perfectly and every accommodation is aesthetic and peaceful. What it does not show you is the reality: meals eaten standing up on the side of a road, bug bites covering your legs, and nights spent trying to sleep while someone snores so loudly you consider throwing your shoe at them or the AC unit molding out your room.
Those moments are not pretty, but they are real. And when you look back, they become the stories you tell with the biggest smile on your face. They are proof that travel is not about perfection — it is about living through the chaos and finding something meaningful in it.
The Reality Behind the Magic
Travel will humble you. It will test your patience, your stomach, your sleep schedule, and sometimes even your faith in humanity. But that is exactly why it’s worth it. These moments — the hard ones and the gritty ones — are what sharpen your edges and make you more resilient, more empathetic, and more alive to the world around you.
When you look back, it’s not just the postcard views you remember. It’s the night you laughed with strangers after getting lost. It’s the kindness of someone who helped when they didn’t have to. It’s the feeling of overcoming something that scared you. Those are the things that shape you into a more well-rounded human being.
Not every trip will be like this. Some places are smooth sailing and perfectly curated. But if you’re chasing the kind of adventures that leave you with stories to tell for years, odds are you’ll hit moments that challenge you. And honestly, who wants to sit in an all-inclusive bubble where everything is an illusion of perfect and nothing ever goes wrong? The real magic is out where things are unpredictable, where life is messy, and where you feel every bit of it.
Along the way, you pick up skills no one ever puts on a packing list — patience when things take longer than you’d like, kindness when you realize everyone is fighting their own battles, acceptance of reality when plans go sideways, and the ability to control only what you can: your emotions and how you respond. That’s the stuff that builds character, not just memories.
So pack the wet wipes. Lower your expectations. Rest when you need to. Laugh when things go sideways. Appreciate the good people you meet, and learn from the ones who aren’t. This is the kind of travel that sticks with you long after you come home — and it’s the kind that makes the world, and you, far more interesting.
That’s the sh*t no one tells you about traveling. And honestly, it’s the stuff that will give you the best stories later. So do it often, and do it courageously.
Happy traveling. And welcome to the real side of the road.
