How Long Term Travel Forced Me To Let Go and Practice Detachment
When most people think of travel, they picture a vacation—something relaxing, light, and carefree. It’s a break from real life, a time to unwind, recharge, and maybe sip a drink by the beach without a single worry. It’s comfortable, it’s predictable, and it rarely asks much of us beyond showing up.
But that’s not the kind of travel I’m talking about.
Long-term travel—the kind that spans months or even years—asks something very different of you. It’s not always peaceful. In fact, it’s often chaotic, uncomfortable, and deeply transformative. The longer I’ve been on the road, the more I’ve been forced to let go: of routines, of comfort, of control, and even of pieces of who I thought I was.
With each new country, culture, and connection, I’ve been stretched and reshaped. I’ve learned to detach—not in a cold or careless way, but in a way that freed me from clinging to expectations, possessions, outcomes, and even certain people. Travel has become one of my greatest teachers in the art of letting go.
In this article, I want to share the main ways long-term travel has taught me to practice detachment. I’ll walk you through the lessons I’ve learned, the daily practices that helped me stay grounded, and the very real challenges I faced along the way. Because this journey isn’t just about where I’ve been—it’s about who I’ve become because I was willing to let go.
Letting Go of Control
One of the most important things I had to learn to let go of while traveling was control. When you’re constantly on the move, making and changing plans, and finding yourself in unfamiliar places, it becomes clear that trying to control everything just doesn’t work.
This means letting go of the need to control things you simply can’t. So much happens while traveling that you never expect. When you go to Thailand, you don’t plan on getting sick and spending 10 days between a hospital and a hostel bed—but sometimes that’s exactly what happens. When you visit a beautiful Hawaiian island, you don’t expect it to rain for six out of the eight days—but it can.
Travel is full of surprises. Delayed buses, missed trains, bad weather, sickness, injuries—things you can’t predict or plan for. And that’s okay. The important thing is realizing that you’re not supposed to control everything. It’s impossible to plan around every small detail, and trying to will only leave you frustrated.
You have to learn to trust the process and accept what’s happening in the moment. When I got really sick in Thailand, I had to delay my trip to Laos by more than a week. At first, I was upset. But because of that delay, I ended up taking a boat into Laos with some of the best people I’ve ever met. If I hadn’t gotten sick, I never would’ve met them, and my experience in Laos would’ve looked completely different.
That’s why it’s so important to let go of control. Holding on too tightly only leads to disappointment. But when you let go, you create space for things to unfold in their own way—and often, that’s where the magic happens.
Letting Go of Attachment to Material Things
The next thing I had to let go of was my attachment to material things. When you’re traveling the world with only a 50-liter backpack, you quickly learn how little you actually need. It becomes easier than you might expect to let go of the urge to constantly buy new clothes, the latest phone, or a different pair of shoes for every occasion.
While traveling long-term, I was forced to live with just a few outfits—five bottoms and about ten tops that I rotated every single day. At first, it felt repetitive. But over time, it taught me to appreciate quality over quantity. Instead of packing 15 cheap shirts, I focused on having a few really good ones that lasted. I learned to invest in things that were durable, practical, and comfortable.
In today’s world, it can be hard to break away from the cycle of consumerism. Everywhere you look, there’s pressure to have the newest, nicest, or trendiest things. But when you’re out in the world, meeting new people, exploring new cultures, and experiencing life in a completely different way, you start to realize how little those things actually matter. The clothes you wear, the shoes you have, or whether your backpack is brand new—none of it impacts the connections you make or the memories you create.
The more I travel, the more I feel a strange anxiety about how much I still own back home. Even though I’ve simplified my life a lot and try not to over consume, I still have plenty of belongings in the U.S. So now, when it comes to shopping, I try to be really intentional. I ask myself whether something is versatile, necessary, and truly useful—or if it’s just something I want in the moment.
With social media and influence from friends or family, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of buying more just because it’s on sale or because it looks good online. But the truth is, travel teaches you to stop prioritizing stuff. It reminds you that experiences matter more than things, and that owning less actually brings a sense of freedom.
And honestly, things get lost while traveling. Clothes go missing at hostels, phones get dropped, luggage gets stolen. The less attached you are to your stuff, the less stress you feel when something is gone. Letting go of material attachment means you’re no longer defined by what you own—you’re free to focus on what you’re experiencing, instead.
Letting Go of Expectations
Next is letting go of our expectations. Now, this might sound simple—but while traveling, especially when we’ve invested time, money, and energy into a trip, our expectations naturally run high. You’ve been planning for weeks or months. You’ve taken time away from your regular life to explore a new place. So, without even realizing it, you start to picture the perfect trip.
We imagine the weather will be perfect, the people will be friendly, everything will go smoothly, and every moment will feel meaningful. But reality doesn’t always match the picture we’ve painted in our heads. And when our expectations are set too high, we’re more likely to feel let down when things don’t go as planned.
That’s why, while I’m traveling, I really try to enter each place—or each leg of my trip—with an open mind and as few expectations as possible. Of course, that’s easier said than done. I’ve gone into plenty of places with high hopes, only to find they weren’t quite what I imagined. But I’ve also found that the most memorable and impactful experiences often come from the places I had no expectations for at all.
When you don’t set yourself up with a rigid picture of what your experience should be, you give yourself space to enjoy what is. You open yourself up to spontaneity and surprise. If you don’t expect anything specific, you can’t really be disappointed. Instead, everything feels like a bonus.
This mindset also allows you to go with the flow more easily. It’s very similar to the idea of releasing control. Letting go of expectations is a way of surrendering to the journey—of accepting that not everything will be perfect, and that’s okay. When you stop clinging to how you think things should go, you create space for how they can go. And more often than not, the unexpected ends up being the best part.
Letting Go Through Emotional Detachment
This one might sound a little controversial at first—learning to detach from your emotions. Now, I don’t mean ignoring your feelings or pretending they don’t exist. Emotions are real, valid, and part of what makes us human. But long-term travel teaches you the importance of loosening your attachment to them—especially the heavy ones—so they don’t hold you back.
One of the hardest parts of solo travel is having to say goodbye—again and again. You find a place that makes you feel at home, or meet people who change your trip, maybe even change you. You create deep bonds with strangers in a matter of days. You share meals, stories, laughter, sunsets. And then, just like that, it’s time to part ways.
When you form emotional connections so quickly and intensely, it’s easy to feel heartbroken when it ends. You might feel empty, lost, or like you’re leaving a part of yourself behind. I’ve had to say goodbye to places I fell in love with and people I didn’t want to leave. But if I stayed attached to every feeling of sadness or nostalgia, it would be too painful to keep going. The emotional weight would become overwhelming.
That’s why it’s important to let yourself feel what you need to feel—but not to hold onto it. Let the sadness come, let the goodbye hurt—but then breathe, release, and move forward. Because the nature of long-term travel is constant change. The more we cling to moments that have passed, the harder it is to stay present and openminded to what’s ahead.
By practicing emotional detachment, you’re not being cold or emotionless —you’re simply learning how to keep your heart open without letting it break every time you move on from someone, someplace or something. You begin to understand that some people and places are meant to be temporary, and that’s okay. You can honor them, carry the memories with you, and still continue your journey with hope and curiosity for what’s next.