The Anatomy of a Burnout

First of all, I should apologize for leaving such a massive cliffhanger and then disappearing for a few days. When I posted it, I didn’t realize I would then be offline for the rest of the week. Now, short of telling you a story that involves getting robbed at gunpoint, selling my husband on the Egyptian black market for airfare home, and dancing camels, then I’m afraid I’ve over amped the drama. Prepare to be underwelmed…

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We left Cairo on an over-night flight on Wednesday.  It’s Friday and we’re now settled in our new apartment in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  As I write this, Drew is watching Terminator 2 with Thai subtitles and Cole is eating a potato from the night market.  I’m sitting on our new bed, with the cherry colored linens we bought today, sipping Mangosteen tea.  It’s crazy how much things can change in 48 hours.

What happened?  I pushed my husband up, over and well beyond the travel burnout wall.  I skipped gleefully towards it, in complete denial, dragging my too-kind husband behind me, and when I heard the loud “thud” of him hitting the wall, I looked around wondering,”What was that sound?”  Oh.  It’s that thing. Right.  Oops.

To be fair to me, because already I can feel my family and friends thinking, “You did what?  To your darling husband?  We love that guy!  Be nice to him!” it wasn’t entirely my fault. It’s RyanAir’s fault. RyanAir and their unbelievably cheap airfares that make you practically drunk on the possibilities, saying things like, “Wee! Let’s go to Paris!  It’s only $28 and (hiccup) I like Paris! Finish your drink and let’s go!”  I mean for $100 you can go almost anywhere in Europe.  It’s so cheap, it’s practically free!  How can you be in Dubai and fly direct to Barcelona?  You HAVE to go to Greece and then France.  And after that it’s just silly to not hit Morocco.  And Egypt.  I was like a toddler in a candy store, I couldn’t stop.

I was getting tired too.  But I was also in AFRICA… which meant we could fly to Uganda, then bus it to Rwanda, then go over to Kenya and Tanzania and finally take a road trip down the east coast all the way to Cape Town.

“Thud.”

There’s that sound again.

It’s funny because one of the most frequent emails I get is “How do I convince my partner/spouse to travel with me?”  The simple answer?  You don’t.  You can’t convince someone to travel any more than you can convince someone to love you.  The more you try, the further you’ll push them away.  I lured my husband into travel.  I promised to go slow.  I promised to take care of all the details.  ”It’ll be just like home, except the bakeries will be better.”  I lured.  Hardcore.  We spent three months in Madrid and he cautiously, slowly began to enjoy himself.  At the end of it, he had a plane ticket home, and I traveled around Central America on my own.  When he was ready he met me down there, backpacking in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.  We had a great time and he was looking forward to the next big trip.

After that we road-tripped across the US, up to Alaska and before I knew it, Drew was off in the UK on his own, doing a week long train trip and Tough Guy race while I was too pregnant to travel.

I think part of me thought, “He’s so there, let’s do this!”

So I started piling on the travel.  And we’ve had a great time.  We’ve traveled more this year than ever before, and I have to say, it’s been great to have a travel partner who has the same tastes, style of travel and ideas about things as me.  But I went too far.  Not just for him, but for both of us.  I got greedy.

In Cairo, we were tired.  I know I was tired anyway.  We spent two weeks in our hotel, catching our breath, doing work — two weeks in Egypt and we didn’t go see the pyramids.  I knew there was a problem.  I didn’t want to admit it, but when I said to Drew,”Are we done?  Is that what’s happening here?”

He looked at me for a moment and said,”Don’t be ridiculous.”

Oh, we are so screwed.  He’s putting on the brave face.

We talked a bit about cutting Egypt short, doing Rwanda and then making a beeline to Chiang Mai for the summer.  I was relieved to be honest.  I was feeling ragged around the edges too.

Ah, but travel burnout, it doesn’t just let you travel as you’d like.  Once you’re done, you’re done.  The rest is just negotiating the terms of the withdrawal.

That night we asked our hotel owner for the bill.  We had been staying in a $15/night, glorious little hotel right downtown, and while there were no other tourists to be seen, we considered ourselves lucky to be getting such a deal on accommodation.  We got the bill.  Drew’s face was ashen.

“They charged us $30 per night.  I told them that the price was wrong and he said, ‘show me’.  So I just looked at the website.  They’ve doubled all of their prices.”

He was right.  In the two weeks we had stayed there, the owner had decided to crank the prices up.  Without telling us.  I marched into his office and demanded answers.  The $15 was never the price.  Or it was the price, but not now.  Or what did I want, the hotel for free?  Or it was the price for two nights but now it was changed.  He was vague.  Shifting.  Lying his ass off.

Drew was pissed.  Not because $30/night is that much money, but just the principle of it.  The blind robbing and straight-faced lying.  It felt personal.  What would have been a minor inconvenience 12 months ago, was now infuriating.  Drew.  was.  done.

“Okay, well we’ll just check out and then go to Rwanda and we’ll be done.”  I was trying to find a solution.

Drew looked at me.  He was calm.

“You know I’ve never put my foot down on anything, but I’m done.”

“Okay.”

I checked us out.  I fought the owner, coldly staring him down until he gave us the room at $22/night.  I booked us a non-stop flight to Bangkok.  I booked a second flight to Chiang Mai.  Within 48 hours, we were in Thailand.  Within 72 hours we had an apartment.

Drew asked me today, “If I had said, ‘I want to go to the States’ would you have gone?”

My answer?  Yes.  Absolutely.  In a second.  If this is not fun, if we’re not enjoying this, then what is the point?  To say we went?  To protect some image of the never-tiring world traveler?  To get a pat on the back from people we don’t know?  Screw that.  If Drew wants Chiang Mai, Drew gets Chiang Mai.

Besides, honestly, I was getting tired too.  I’m not some long suffering wife who is taking one for the team.  Twelve countries and 30+ cities in a year is a lot of travel.  With a baby.  While working.  And filming a documentary.  And while my first instinct is to push through — that doesn’t make it the right one — there is actually no cure for travel burnout.  You have to chill out for a bit.  That’s it.  Everyone gets burned out eventually, it’s just a fact of life —  travel is demanding physically and emotionally.  You just need a little time to decompress.

So here I am.  In my lovely little apartment, with cable TV, AC and superfast wifi.  Being back in Chiang Mai is glorious — it feels like a hot bath after a long day at work. It’s one of the few places in the world where I’ve said, “I could so live here”.  My takeaway from all of this is that I’m so thankful that we have the kind of life and the flexibility to turn on a dime and change things up if they’re not working.

My friend said to me, “Wow, that was fast.  You guys don’t mess around do you?”  Nope.  Not really.  And I like it that way.

(P.S. 24 hours in Chiang Mai and Drew mentioned taking a trip to Laos. And Cambodia. And Vietnam. Ha!  So much for taking it easy.)