How Full-Time Travel Ruined Travel for Me - But we still do it anyway.

It’s the night before a 6 AM flight out of Chiang Mai. We’ve got a layover in Bangkok before heading to our next stop. I should be sleeping. I should at least be packing. Instead, I’m staring at the luggage scale, trying to figure out how our bags managed to gain 5 or 6 extra kilos since we arrived.

I mean, yeah, I’ve gained a little weight, but how did the bags get heavier? And because we’re inside the 24-hour window, the airline has decided it’s “impossible” to add more baggage allowance. So our options are:

• Trim stuff now
• Hope the check-in agent lets it slide
• Pay the kind of overweight fee that feels like a scam even while you’re paying it

Probably going to do a mix of all three.

The Death of Airport Magic

Remember when airports felt magical? When the departure board represented infinite possibilities and boarding announcements carried the promise of adventure? After three years of full-time travel with our family, that magic has been systematically murdered by reality.

Security lines that snake through entire terminals. Online check-in that somehow still requires waiting in mile-long queues at the airport. Carry-on weight limits so strict that our Wayb Pico travel car seat gets scrutinized like contraband, even though it's specifically designed for air travel.

The romance of travel dies hard when you're dealing with budget airline weight restrictions that give you 7kg for carry-on with no upgrade option. Seven kilograms. That's barely enough for a week's worth of clothes for Harper, let alone the educational materials, electronics, and emergency supplies we need for worldschooling three kids.

Routine Kills Wonder

There’s this thing people say — “The journey is part of the destination.”

Whoever came up with that has clearly never done a budget airline flight with kids, a mountain of luggage, and a 4 AM wake-up call. For me, the journey is not part of the destination. The journey is the tax you pay to get to the destination.

The destinations haven't lost their magic. Japan still takes our breath away. Vietnam's street food scene still makes us giddy. Thailand's beaches still provide the reset our family needs. But getting there? That's become a necessary evil rather than part of the adventure.

It's not just the physical discomfort of budget airline seats designed for humans slightly larger than a toddler. It's the mental load of constant logistics. Visa requirements that change without notice. Flight cancellations that cascade into accommodation disasters. The perpetual anxiety of moving our entire life from point A to point B with military precision.

Somewhere in our second year of full-time travel, flights stopped being adventures and became simply transportation. Expensive, uncomfortable, anxiety-inducing transportation with the customer service quality of the DMV.

The ADHD Travel Anxiety Spiral

Here's something I've written about extensively: my ADHD makes pre-travel anxiety particularly brutal. While Lindsay methodically works through our packing checklist, my brain ping-pongs between seventeen different scenarios of things that could go wrong. Did I transpose the month and day on our visa application? Again? Do we have enough pages in our passport? What if the airline changed our seat assignments again?

The rational part of my brain knows we've done this routine dozens of times successfully. The ADHD part of my brain is convinced this will be the time everything falls apart. So instead of productively preparing, I'm procrastinating by writing about procrastinating. Meta-procrastination at its finest.

I'm writing this blog post at 11 PM the night before an early morning flight, primarily to distract my anxious brain from the packing I should be doing and the airport chaos I can't control.

Convenience Theater

Online check-in has become the ultimate example of what I call "convenience theater." You complete the entire process feeling accomplished, only to discover you still need to wait in the exact same line at the airport.

"But sir, you have bags to check." Yes, I understand that. What I don't understand is why the online check-in process exists if it doesn't actually expedite anything. It's theater designed to make us feel like we're saving time while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Budget airlines have perfected this art form. They'll charge you extra for everything from seat selection to breathing room, then act surprised when families traveling with small children need additional assistance.

The Weighing Ritual

Every seasoned family traveler knows the pre-departure dance. Clothes spread across the hotel room floor, bathroom scale commandeered for luggage duty, family members strategically wearing their heaviest items to avoid overweight fees.

We've become experts at this choreography. Lindsay distributes camera equipment across multiple bags to balance weight. I wear my heaviest shoes and stuff jacket pockets with electronics. The girls carry their tablets in personal backpacks to save precious grams in the main luggage.

Recently we took a couple of short week-long trips where we managed with no checked bags. That made everything easier, but it's not a real solution for moving our entire lives from one country to another. Worldschooling requires educational materials, seasonal clothes, and equipment that simply doesn't fit in carry-on restrictions designed for weekend business travelers.

Learning to Share the Burden

One thing I'm finally learning to help deal with travel anxiety: sharing the burden instead of trying to bear it alone. For years, I'd internalize every logistics concern, every "what if" scenario, every potential complication.

Take our upcoming flight with a layover in Bangkok. My brain immediately spirals: Will we have to re-check our bags? What if the connection is tight? What if customs takes forever? Instead of letting these thoughts fester, I've started voicing them to Lindsay.

"So what if we have to re-check bags?" she'll say. "We have a three-hour layover and we'll figure it out." Suddenly, the catastrophic scenario in my head becomes a minor inconvenience with a simple solution. Sometimes just saying the worry out loud makes it seem trivial.

This has been a game-changer for our family travel dynamic. Lindsay doesn't need to solve every problem, but sharing the mental load means I'm not carrying every anxiety alone.

Airport Lounges: The Last Sanctuary

The lounges have lost some of their magic too, but they remain about the only thing that makes airports bearable. Access to wifi that actually works, coffee that doesn't taste like jet fuel, and space for the girls to spread out with their activities makes a massive difference in our travel experience.

Priority Pass through our AMEX card has become essential infrastructure rather than luxury. It's the difference between surviving travel days and enduring them.

The Family Travel Tax

Traveling with three kids isn't just more complicated than solo travel. It's exponentially more expensive and logistically complex. Airlines that advertise "family-friendly" policies still charge full adult prices for children who need minimal space and services.

Booking five seats together requires either paying premium fees or accepting that our 6-year-old might end up sitting next to strangers while we're scattered across the aircraft. Because apparently airlines' computer systems can't figure out basic family logistics that any parent solves instinctively.

Add in the equipment requirements for worldschooling, and you're looking at luggage restrictions that feel designed to discourage family travel entirely.

Finding Perspective (Sort Of)

Look, I know how this sounds. American guy complaining about the minor inconveniences of living an incredibly privileged lifestyle. Trust me, the irony isn't lost on me that I'm writing this from a comfortable hotel room in Chiang Mai while millions of people will never have the opportunity to leave their home countries.

But here's the thing about travel anxiety and ADHD: knowing your problems are "first-world problems" doesn't make them less real or manageable. The anxiety is still anxiety. The logistical challenges are still challenges. The fact that we're living our dream doesn't eliminate the parts of that dream that have become genuinely difficult.

Maybe the solution isn't changing my outlook. Maybe it's accepting that some aspects of this lifestyle genuinely suck, and that's okay. Not everything has to be magical. Sometimes the journey really is just the annoying part between destinations.

Coping Strategies That Actually Work

After three years of trial and error, we've developed systems that reduce (but don't eliminate) travel anxiety:

Pack days in advance, not hours. My ADHD brain needs time to process and reprocess packing lists. Rushing never works.

Share concerns immediately. Don't let logistics worries fester. Talk through scenarios with your travel partner.

Use Backblaze cloud backup religiously. Knowing our photos and important documents are safely stored reduces one major anxiety source.

Accept imperfection. We will forget something. A flight will be delayed. Someone will have a meltdown in the airport. Building buffer time and emotional resilience matters more than perfect planning.

Invest in quality gear. Our SafetyWing travel insurance provides peace of mind that basic emergencies won't derail everything.

Remember why we're doing this. Yes, airports suck. But watching Harper confidently order food in three languages makes the security lines worthwhile.

The Tomorrow Morning Reality Check

So here we are again. Early morning flight, last-minute blog writing, anxiety management through procrastination. Does writing this help? Probably not. But it gets my scattered brain focused on something other than the seventeen things that could go wrong tomorrow.

Lindsay has finished packing (because she's competent and organized). The girls are asleep, blissfully unaware of the logistics required to move their entire world across time zones. And I'm here, admitting that full-time travel has taught me to hate traveling while still being grateful we can do it.

Maybe that's the most honest thing I can say about this lifestyle. It's simultaneously the best and worst decision we've ever made. The destinations continue to amaze us. The journey continues to test us. And somehow, that combination keeps us coming back for more.

Tomorrow we'll navigate another airport, deal with another airline's arbitrary policies, and arrive somewhere incredible that makes all the travel anxiety worthwhile. Until then, I should probably actually finish packing.

Ready to plan your own family adventure? Contact Lindsay at [email protected] for travel planning that takes the real challenges of family travel into account, not just the Instagram-worthy moments.

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