Maybe we should all start living like tourists.

When you travel to a foreign country it’s already difficult figuring everything out; the last thing you care about is what everyone thinks of you.

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During my most recent trip to Southeast Asia I learned numerous life lessons. One of the lessons I’m trying to utilize since being back, is not caring so much about what other people think of me—so sort of living like a tourist no matter where I am.

What do I mean by this?

One of the most common phrases I said during my travels probably was “it doesn’t matter what we look like, no one here knows us.” Of course, we respected the attire of the villages and temples that we visited, but when we were out exploring or adventuring it didn’t matter what we had on or what we looked like because most of the people we met we’d probably never see again.

While traveling there were several days that we’d wake up at 3:30 am to go on a sunrise hike. When you are hiking up a volcano in the dark, I promise the last thing you are going to care about is your appearance.

We hiked up Mt. Batur in Kintamani, Bali with tourists from all over the world. When we reached the top of the volcano, we met strangers from Denmark, Australia, Germany and other places all across the globe. We had no care in the world other than watching the clouds roll in and out and make way for the bright beautiful sunrise.

We simply didn’t care about what anyone thought of us; and quite frankly it didn’t ever feel like anyone was judging our messy hair, the bags under our eyes or our beat-up jackets that had been at the bottom of our bags for the majority of the trip.

A similar situation took place the morning after Charissa and I got food poisoning in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand.

Yes, I know on our social media feeds it looked like everything was just picture perfect; but we indeed got food poisoning our last night traveling.

Just to sum it up; I was taking so much time puking in the toilet in the guesthouse we were in, Charissa was a champ, and grabbed the trashcan and started puking out on the porch. It was really a strong building point in our friendship if you ask me.

Anyway, the following morning after getting no sleep and puking our brains out for eight hours we had to make our way to the Ferry to get back to Krabi. We could barely make it ten steps without hunching over. Apparently, it looked like we had the worst hangovers of our entire lives because everyone kept asking if we had had too much fun the night before. Sadly, this was not just a hangover (and let me tell you, Char and I have had our share of bad hangovers… this was far worse).

We got on that Ferry looking rougher than we probably ever have, and the sweetest Australian named Aaron, a complete stranger kept offering to get us water, or Ibuprofen from his bags in the back, we could barely hold a conversation with the kind guy.

Again the last thing on our mind was caring what everyone around was thinking of us; we simply were just trying to make it to Krabi without throwing up anymore.

What I’m trying to get at here is that while we were traveling, our minds were so focused on living in the moment, enjoying our surroundings, meeting new people and just living up the entire experience; I don’t think there was ever a time that we sincerely cared what anyone thought of us.

However, Charissa and I both had the chat a couple of times about how nervous we really were to arrive home. I cannot tell you how many times we had to re-think what we were going to wear that first night back in Nebraska. Sounds silly I know.

I think others can relate to this when I say; sometimes it’s the places you’re supposed to feel the most accepted and surrounded by ‘friends’ that you feel most judged. I’m not sure why this is; or maybe it’s just girls overthinking like we do. But as excited as we were to return home to see friends and family, we were equally dreading the fact that we felt the need to dress better, act better, and just be better or we feared we might get judged for some reason.

So, we looked at one another and decided there was no way we were going to stop living like we were tourists; everywhere we went. We decided we wanted to just simply stop caring and start living in the moment again and enjoying the adventures and the fun parts of life like we had been while traveling.

Now we both are living in Maine and are pretty much tourists again; but it’s the best feeling in the world being able to just leave your house and not care about what anyone is going to think.

So, I think we should all start living like ‘tourists.’ Because life is about the beautiful sunrise hikes, the late nights poorly singing Karaoke in the dive bars, and the everyday adventures with your best friends no matter where you’re at.

We need to stop caring so much about what others think, realize we are all unique and beautiful in our own ways and care more about how we are treating one another and focus on living for the adventures today tomorrow and forever.

And just like that, Charissa and I are headed out to be typical tourists. We are going on our first hike of the year, where we plan to run into plenty of strangers who will care less about what we look like and stop to pet every single dog we see!

We will probably enjoy some Lobster by the coast, enjoy some Blueberry sodas, take a billion pictures with a melting ice cream cone, and ask all the Mainers why they can’t pronounce their ‘Rs’ correctly. Just kidding, but seriously; cheers to being tourists everywhere we go. Happy Friday!