Photo by Ilse Reijs and Jan-Noud Hutten

I’ve been home for five months now, and even with the constant domestic travel and occasional Couchsurfing, the loneliness still creeps up on me. No, that’s not right… not loneliness, but rather that feeling of losing what makes travel so special.

In a foreign country, you can’t help but stand out. You’re the new face, the new language, the new hair, the new personality… the new everything. That strangeness extends to your own behavior as well. You have to adapt quickly to changing and unfamiliar circumstances, meet and talk with people who may have nothing in common with you. It keeps your brain firing, and you’re always guessing.

That may sound unpleasant to the non-traveler, but to those of us who love the feeling of strange, returning home leaves us unstimulated, bored and out of place.

How can we recapture the spark of travel?

Certainly, you could move on to another country. Or you can find a job that allows you to recapture those feelings of being abroad.

Photo by cvconnell

Mascot

Being a mascot for a promotional event — Energizer Bunny, Geico gecko for example — reproduces the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. You draw attention to yourself based purely on appearance, so if you can’t speak the language, it really doesn’t matter.


Not that they’d be able to hear you in that suit, anyway. High paying contract work makes this ideal for travelers temporarily or even permanently repatriated.

Tour Guide

Tour guides puts you in the position of working with people from all different nationalities. Most of the people you’ll encounter in this position generally only stay for a short period of time. Just as you represent your country as an expat, you do so while escorting visitors from landmark to landmark.

The same position, but without the income? Couchsurfing host.

Entertain At Children’s Parties

Photo by Shopping Diva

Similar to mascot work, the trend of hiring superhero and princess costumed entertainers at children’s parties offers you the chance to teach kids to believe in magic, fairy tales and superhero powers. This job is high paying, with flexible hours and the added bonus of seeing the look in a child’s eyes as he sees his favorite cartoon character come to life.

Other jobs allow you to maintain a flexible schedule — so you can take off for travel when you want — or give you the benefits of working on the road. Travel writer or photographer are two well loved Matadorian professions. Here are some others to consider.

Convention Worker

I tried this one not too long ago, promoting different companies at various conventions across the US. In Reno, I met several Kiwis and Aussies selling vacation packages. One hitch: convention workers are generally hired in-house. You can talk to your current company about including some extra work as an added perk. Expect between $10-30/hr.

Scuba Instructor

I met a Couchsurfer on Kou Tao who found his bliss working as a scuba instructor around the world. The position of scuba instructor is highly specialized, always in demand, and pays fairly well. Kou Tao is a great, cheap place to get trained up if you’re considering this. Averages about $33,000/year.

If you’re an avid diver, though, without the extensive training required to be an instructor, you can also find work on dive boats and in dive shops worldwide.

Photo by derekGavey

Chef

Why not apply to be a sous chef at any number of international hotels, casinos, resorts? You’ll be eating well and have a bit of luxury many travelers don’t have. You’d be eating well, too.


There are also some very specialized positions that allow you to visit places the general public aren’t allowed. For example, head chef for scientists studying at Isla de los Monos in Panama. Salary varies considerably.

International Hotel Concierge

You’re a tour guide, but essentially standing behind a desk, waiting for others’ obscure questions about the area. Regardless, being a concierge in a large city with an international hotel offers a bit more stability that most traveling jobs, and as long as you’re knowledgeable about your surroundings and have a decent amount of experience in hospitality, it’s worth a short-term contract. If you’re just getting started, consider being a waitress or host to prepare for the position.

Interpreter

You must be good. Pass that language test. Show references. Be prepared for anything. While you won’t need the precision of an official United Nations’ interpreter, this is not a good profession to take on if you’re not confident in your language skills. If you are, however, the world is a land of milk and honey: free travel, the chance to speak with foreigners on a regular basis, very high pay. Think around $65,000/year for a stable position, but you can charge almost anything when answering on-call demands and Craigslist ads.

Photo by jimg944

Cruise ship

Working on a cruise ship isn’t entirely freelance but offers limited-term contracts and the chance to explore countries between ports of call. Do you have experience working with children? Why not go for youth activities director? Feel like being surrounded by smoke and alcohol? Blackjack dealer is best for you. Short-term contracts guarantee you free room and board, as well as a few thousand dollars for a few months’ work.

Nurse/EMT

Well qualified health care is needed world wide. There are plenty of services that provide short term and often renewable contracts, that allow you to travel, live and work anywhere in the world. Salary does vary, but often includes health insurance, apartment rentals and plenty of time off to do your own exploration.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Any other jobs you’d recommend for people who love to travel? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Also, coming soon to Matador Life. A new series on jobs, called How’d You Get That Gig? We’ll explore different professions, dream jobs and careers that are fun, flexible, and allow for travel. We’ll even show you how to train for them and land the job for yourself.

Our first instalment will be How’d You Get That Gig? Boat Captain. Watch for it in the coming weeks.

Photo: srbyug

But what to do now? All you know is travel. Will you stay for a few weeks and fly out to your next adventure, or settle for months, even years, before making plans to backpack Kilimanjaro?

Photo: Daisy’s Little Cottage

You should be prepared for how such an extended stay at home will change you; all your experiences traveling up to the present have rewired your brain chemistry for the better, but it’s only a matter of time before you adapt to the comforts and trials of the domestic life.

How can you tell you’re really planning to stay home for a while?

1. You speak about your countrymen in the first person again.

No longer do you engage in conversations abroad with random foreign travelers and speak of the people with whom you share nationality in the third person, strangers detached from your days on the road.

You find yourself empathizing with their domestic struggles as you eat the same foods, enjoy the same entertainment, and live in the same country once more.

2. You actually try to get a regular job.

Photo: star5112

The horror, the horror.

You can’t make part-time hours at a hostel fulfill your needs for things like food, housing, clothes, and Internet.

Maybe you want some stability; maybe you feel this job will be the one to take, the one to make you realize that the 9-5 isn’t so bad… nahhhh.

3. You buy laundry detergent.

Gone are the days when you simply stop by friends or family for a visit and deposit your backpack next to the washing machine to ensure a speedy load. No, you’re planning to stay long enough to use all 60 loads’ worth of detergent. Feel grounded now?

4. Your Couchsurfing profile is confirmed at home.

Now a Couchsurfing host, a surfer no more.

5. Food from home is not considered a “treat.”

You don’t have wander into a McDonald’s in Agra to satisfy your hamburger craving. You indulge at first, then realize that this food is nothing special, available everywhere and in bulk.

6. Driving feels more like a chore than a release.

Granted, some of us drive even when we’re traveling abroad, but it’s often in a new environment in lighter circumstances; rarely would we be that concerned with getting into work by 9:00, fighting traffic, and stressing over “making good time.”

7. You don’t read as many travel stories.

Photo: theerin

It seemed like you had all the time in the world to read those books you let pile up. Now you’re once again surrounded by English bookstores, and all you want to do is get distracted by YouTube, Hulu, friends, parties, work, significant others. Reading takes a backseat when you stop stretching yourself.

8. You settle for less.

It’s the subtlest change of all to come to your attention. You start eating healthy; soon you’re consuming a few fast food lunches a week. You look for employment and settle for something that pays rather than a job you’d enjoy. You have friends, and don’t feel compelled to reach out of that circle to find new ones.

And, the worst of all… you understand why some people feel compelled not to travel. After all, everything you could possibly want is here: stability, good food, people who speak your language, familiarity. Why leave all that behind to see some distant corner of the world? Scary concept.

Community Connection:

How will you know when its time to finish up at home and go traveling? Turner Wright gives you 10 good reasons.

Why do we crave escape from the modern world? Steve Orchard explains.

Start planning your escape; Angie Teater offers her advice on ways to ditch the cubicle.

What other explanation could you give for running over 42 km in a single stunt? You can’t. Every runner in the history of time has had at least one race where he questions his sanity at the starting line.

For those who stay in the game, these are constant feelings. No matter how accustomed you grow to the mileage, no matter how much energy you seem to have down the road, it will always come back to you, standing cold and wet in the mud between two cheaply-constructed barriers surrounded by thousands of scantily-dressed muscle-clad runners.

We live for this.

If you’re thinking about joining the club, here are a few tips to get you started:

1. The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials

…You don’t become a runner by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could he make them understand?

You are not going to just be running 26.2 miles or 42.195 kilometers. No, far more than that. For the months before, you are going to slowly increase your distance during long runs, your speed during interval workouts, and your muscle mass with weight training. 26.2, daunting as it may be to a beginner, has hundreds of miles that come before it.

Photo by darkmatter

2. Getting Started

Set a goal time. You can change it depending on how your training proceeds – you might even decide to settle for a half-marathon finish – but set a goal. Do you want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, or just finish so you can say “I DID IT!!”?

You might even decide to do a half marathon instead of a full, but either way, set a goal.

3. Avoiding Stress Fractures

You don’t have to take a nasty fall to break a bone. Stress fractures are caused by repeated loading on the bones and usually occur in the legs.

Think of your muscles as the shock absorbers on your car; without proper training, the shocks don’t function properly and the stress is forcibly absorbed by the only thing available – the bones.

As a result, it’s a very good idea to only increase your weekly mileage by 10%. Start out doing 10 miles/week? Next week you can do 11.

There are other considerations as well, from the surface you’re training on – concrete or trail running – to the support provided by footwear.

If you do want to try and reduce the stress on your legs, consider aquajogging: a way of running underwater that effectively exercises the legs without providing any impact forces. You should also try to avoid everything but the high-end treadmills, as many increase the stress on your legs and knees.

4. More than Leg Motion

Although it’s certainly possible to finish a marathon after months of straight running, it’s also a good idea to combine those miles with other cardio and anaerobic workouts:

• Swimming is great for building stamina and lung efficiency. It also brings you one step closer to training for a triathlon.
• Weight training is kind of necessary, in my humble opinion. Doing squats and intensive exercises will improve your leg muscle and overall performance.
• There are many schools of thought here: running and yoga, running and Tai Chi. See what feels right to you.

5. Set a Timeline

You can do the math yourself, depending on your starting weekly mileage (i.e. how long will it take you to get up to 20+ mile runs by adding 10% weekly?), but if you’re used to going a few miles and have a little racing experience, 4-5 months of training should be sufficient. Six months would be ideal.

Don’t fool yourself; training up to do that kind of distance is going to be a major time commitment. You’ll reach the point where you need two hours or more to do your daily run, and that doesn’t include time for weight training or everything else.

I nearly failed my fall semester at university because I was reaching the end of my training and topping 50+ miles/week.

Photo by CyboRoZ

6. Nutrition

Two simple rules:

• Avoid alcohol and caffeinated beverages.
• Hydrate.

Other than that, generic nutritional advice will do: be smart, eat fresh fruit, avoid fatty foods, and get some quality protein into your system. O

Once you start going 10+ miles/day, you can pretty much eat anything you want without consequence. Just like a pregnant woman supporting some strange cravings, you should listen to what your body is telling you to ingest.

7. The Long Run

There’s an ongoing debate among marathon runners: what should your longest run be before the race? 20-22 miles, or something more conservative?

For my first marathon, the 2005 Austin Freescale, my long run was up to 20 miles, and I had competed in a 30K six weeks prior to race day. I must admit, I wasn’t thrilled with the time it took my legs to fully recover from that three-hour run, but I did feel so much more prepared for the actual distance, knowing, if nothing else, I could finish 20/26ths of the race.

Before the 2006 Boston Marathon, I kept my long run down to 16 miles. Although I was confident I could finish, part of that was due to my prior marathon experience. I did manage to finish with a semi-decent time, 3:04:46, but my leg muscles were on fire after the race, and I attributed that to improper training: I should have pushed myself and just accepted a few days of recovery.

The bottom line? It’s different for each person. Ask trainers, listen to your body, and consider how much time you have to run.

8. Keeping Pace

Maintaining the pace you’re most comfortable with and keeping the time you want are difficult tasks, which is why training groups and stopwatches were invented.

During the race, depending on the size, there might be a few assigned pace leaders, their respective finish times pinned to their backs. Follow them if need be, or in the footsteps of your experienced friend who is known for keeping his pace consistent.

Photo by zhurnaly

9. During The Race

Hydrate and eat a protein-packed meal before your race. After that gun goes off and your brain turns to Swiss cheese when you think about the reality that you actually have to run this thing now, you can start to consider strategy.

Try to avoid the Poweraid or sugary drinks provided along the course; although you will have to stop and get some water eventually, energy drinks typically give you a large drain when running before any noticeable results surface.

The wall. The wall is the point at which your brain and your legs are screaming and clawing their way for you to stop performing such arduous tasks like moving one foot in front of the other. After the wall, the only thing propelling you is sheer determination.

We’re past logic and reason. The only thing left is force of will. “Chuck Norris wouldn’t stop,” a sign boasted before the 20-mile mark in Boston.

10. Pain

I’ve never really subscribed to the philosophy of “no pain, no gain” when it comes to distance running.

As long as you build up your distance properly, take the time to stretch before and after workouts, and do whatever is necessary when you need to cool down – massages, short runs, striders, stretching, walking in a circle – you should not have to go through the excruciating pain one might associate with running from Marathon to Athens.

community connection

If you want to do some more reading about marathon running, I recommend the following books:

Again to Carthage

Running the Seven Continents: Tales of Travel and the Marathon

The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei

I also recommend:

Keeping Pace in Japan (my homepage, with information on running in Japan)

“How to Run a Marathon” Expert Village Videos