Wanderlost
The 5 kinds of anti-travelers who would rather go nowhere
Text: Micah Almazan
Illustration: Gilbert Manantan
IS IT just me or are online articles promoting quitting your job to travel extremely annoying? Are they not pretentious and inconsiderate?
Traveling is a luxury that most of us cannot afford, either financially or time-wise. Okay, maybe I’m being a tad bit too resentful because I don’t travel as much as I would like mainly because I’m broke most of the time, but I think you get my point. I think.
The internet, otherwise known as life, is buzzing with all the wonderful things about travel — from hashtags and trending recommendations to inspirational articles and Instagram-perfect photos. While people always brag about how they just love to travel because apparently, that alone makes them awesome, rarely do we talk about those who don’t. So, let’s!
Based on experience and some Google research, here are some personality types that prefer other things than traveling.
1. The Belle
As Disney fans would easily recall in the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, the townspeople sang about Belle being odd because she read books. The “Belle” is the bookworm who doesn’t deem it necessary to travel to feel excitement. When adventure is at the palm of your hands, why wander off?
2. The Tita/Tito
Okay, there are some tita/tito types who like to travel, but I could imagine that for this particular homebody type, the thought of cooking with the state-of-the-art stove they just bought or sipping wine on the couch while writing their next big story thrills them more than hitting the road somewhere far from the comforts of their headquarters. There is no place like home after all.
3. The Feeling President
The workaholic who doesn’t know when to take a break from their job usually claims they just don’t have the luxury of time to travel, when the truth is, they simply don’t want to. There’s so much to do, and traveling would just be time wasted. They’d much rather utilize their time improving products and services either to make money or a difference — or both.
4. The Chuckie Finster
The ginger cutie in Nickelodeon’s Rugrats was a bag of nerves who was wary of almost everything. Anxiety, whether social, agoraphobic, or everything in between, can be serious and should not be taken lightly. Why would they subject themselves to such suffering to meet strangers who might turn out to be serial killers and have their skin come in contact with unfamiliar environments?
5. The Professional Bum
They just cannot be bothered. Lifting a finger to pack, or much less activating the few brain cells they have left to plan logistics, is definitely not their idea of a good time. Lying down in bed, binge-watching shows, and basically squandering the money their mothers gave them on God-knows-what — that’s heaven. Call them lazy and entitled, they won’t care.
If you took any of this seriously, I recommend sucking on a lollipop to make the bitter taste in your mouth go away. If not, good for you!
Wanderlols:
A quick rundown of fun activities to do if you hate traveling:
1. Playing with bubble wrap because bubble wrap.
2. Crushing on a surfer or a mountaineer to live vicariously through them from the comforts of your bat cave.
3. Having brunch in bed because breakfast is too early.
4. Taking BuzzFeed quizzes because you learn more about yourself that way than experiencing new things.
5. Picking up a ukulele so at least you still get legit beach feels without actually being at the beach.
6. Getting a tattoo of the world map just to be ironic.
7. Working on getting a “beach bod” for the sake of being healthy, not pleasing others. Right?
8. Anything Phineas and Ferb would do, not because you’re bored, but because you’re epic like that.