Here’s something people don’t talk about enough: traveling is fucking scary!
And I don’t mean the destinations themselves are menacing or dangerous. I mean that arriving in a new place that is entirely different than anything you’ve ever known is, to say the least, jarring. Disorienting. Sometimes downright terrifying.
You’d think after visiting quite a few countries over the past year and experiencing what I’d call an average to high amount of culture shock, it would get easier. But no. Arriving in a new place will always be at least a little bit scary. Sometimes a lot scary.
I’ve experienced this fear to varying degrees across dozens of cities and countries. But I think the most intense instance was upon arriving in Bangkok at the end of August this year.
I’d just endured a 24-hour travel day. I was exhausted, disoriented, and desperately in need of a shower. Thailand was hot — a horrible sticky kind of heat that has followed me for the past three months. All I needed to do was get to my hostel and collapse.
But instead of taking a cab or even the airport bus that would drop us right on the main backpacker street, I decided (in my infinite post-flight wisdom and my stubborn determination to “travel like a local”), to take the local train. Which only took us halfway to our hostel.
The train was packed. I felt like I was taking up way too much space with my two-backpack situation, I felt like everyone was looking at me because I was a foreigner, and I was bumping into people every time the train lurched. Nobody talked on the train, or if they did, I didn’t have the slightest clue what they were saying. The script on the signs was completely foreign to me, I couldn’t read the train stops. I just had to trust that I’d somehow figure out when we were at the last stop.
I was so overstimulated, and that’s when the panic set in. I remember thinking:
What if I’ve made a huge mistake?
I just flew halfway across the world, and now I have to figure out what to do here? The plan is to stay in Asia for eight months? That seems entirely excessive. No, that seems impossible.
I was looking out the window at the unfamiliar scenes flying by, actively creating my escape plan. How do I convince my boyfriend that we don’t need to stay in Asia for as long as we planned? How about we just see the highlights and then get a move on back to a place that feels more friendly and familiar? Somewhere I can read the signs. Somewhere I understand what people are saying when they talk to me.
This feeling is normal!
One of my friends I met in Morocco, Charlotte, told me about her first few days in Thailand. When she first arrived in Bangkok, she was too anxious to eat anywhere or do much of anything. So for the first few days, she holed up in her hostel room and only ate grilled cheese sandwiches from 7-Eleven. Safe, familiar, predictable. She could point at what she wanted, pay without confusion, and eat in the comfort of her own space where nobody was staring at her.
And then one day (probably gradually, not all at once) she snapped out of it. She went on to spend two months backpacking through Thailand and talks about it as one of the best experiences of her life. But when she first got there? She was shaken, scared and overwhelmed and wondering what she had gotten herself into.
And that’s totally normal.
And it wasn’t just Thailand. I’ve had this “I can’t do this, what was I thinking” moment. I’ve been there in Morocco, Madrid, Vienna, Ljubljana, even London, which is literally as close to my culture as you can get. Almost everywhere I’ve been, there’s been at least one point where I’ve felt anywhere from a low-level anxiety hum to a full-blown mental breakdown. And I know I’m not alone in this. I watched and helped my friend Charlotte go through the exact same thing in Morocco.
But even though it is a totally normal feeling, I don’t think people talk about it enough. Even writing this now, I’m thinking “is this a normal feeling or am I just a scaredy-cat?” Because nobody talks about it. I really think it needs to be talked about more, because these travelers aren’t super human.
I used to think fear meant I was doing something wrong. That real travelers, the kind who always know where they’re going, who can find the best hole-in-the-wall authentic restaurants to meet locals, who seem effortlessly confident navigating foreign cities, never felt afraid.
But now, I’m thinking that maybe they get scared too. They just do it anyway.
Maybe the difference between people who travel and people who don’t isn’t fearlessness. Maybe it’s just willingness to be uncomfortable. To sit with that fear. To get on the train even when you can’t read the stops. To order food even when you might accidentally point at something on the menu you’d never normally eat.
There’s two incredible quotes popularized by author Glennon Doyle in their book Untamed that I think perfectly round out this idea: “We can do hard things,“ and “If you can’t beat fear, just do it scared.”
And that’s the secret, this fear isn’t going to stop coming, it’s literally human nature to feel uncomfortable in a new situation. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Eventually whether or not you’re scared, you learn to walk through life with confidence. You take the scary situation and you figure your way through it.
And eventually, through sheer exposure therapy and repeatedly doing the thing that scares you, your fear lessens. The unfamiliar becomes familiar. The overwhelming becomes manageable. Until suddenly, you find yourself actually enjoying yourself. You find yourself confidently navigating the train system you couldn’t figure out two weeks ago. You find yourself talking with people who don’t speak your language but somehow you’re communicating anyway.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that if you’re planning your first big trip and you’re terrified, that’s normal. If you’re already traveling and having moments where you want to book a flight home, that’s normal too. If you’re reading travel blogs and Instagram captions and feeling like everyone else has it figured out except you, they probably don’t.
They’re just doing it scared, too.
Thanks for reading!
xx abby
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I've traveled nearly my whole life and fear is just part of my budget. I just try to keep the level within a certain range. Too little and I'm bored, too much and I can't enjoy myself.
What I appreciate most about this is how honest it is. People romanticize travel like it’s all sunsets and “finding yourself,” but the truth is: the first days in a new country can feel like your nervous system is getting rewired in real time.
That moment on the train — not knowing the script, not knowing the stops, not knowing if you’ve made a mistake — that’s the part almost no one admits. But that’s exactly where the real travel begins: not in comfort, but in disorientation. In learning what to do when nothing feels familiar.
I’ve had versions of that moment in Lisbon, in Montreal even sometimes when i got back to NYC and the trains are all rerouted and a mess You think you’re experienced until a new city reminds you that confidence is not a permanent state — it’s something you rebuild every time you land somewhere new.
Your point is dead on: the difference isn’t fearlessness.
It’s the willingness to feel fear and still step forward.
“We can do hard things” — and sometimes the hardest thing is staying long enough for the unknown to become yours.