Jet Lag

Travel is exhausting! While it is extremely fulfilling, it takes a lot of energy to be on the road (or plane) for long periods of time. In the past month, I have backpacked through 5 different countries (some multiple times) and 1 US territory, all while working at my desk job here in Utah in between. I took a total of 7 days off work and spent 19 days abroad. I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to take so much advantage of my vacation time, but it has meant that I often rush to the airport at the end of a busy work day and rush back to the office the second I step off the plane.

Places I have been in the past month (map generated on gcmap.com)

All in all, this means that since I have been back, I have been sleeping in nearly all of my spare time. It's hard to be productive at home when all I want to do is sleep and plan my next trip! And it doesn't help that we have had a broken internet router for nearly 3 weeks at my apartment. I have not had an excuse to stay awake without being able to surf the web!

When I got back from South Africa, the time difference wasn't so bad because I would be wide awake at work, then as soon as I got home at 6:15pm I would fall right asleep. I would wake up around 2 or 3am and I actually got a lot done before going to work at 6:30am. This went on for about two weeks before I left on my next trip hopping around the Asia Pacific region for another ten days. But I don't think that playing around in three different time zones was very good for my body. When I got back I had the hardest time staying awake by the end of the work day for the first couple of days. I didn't get back onto a relatively normal schedule until I forced myself to stay awake until 11pm on my second night back, but even then my body just wanted more sleep! So that weekend, I slept for 11 hours a night. Even now, I still feel like I haven't caught up on the sleep I missed from skipping through time zones on top of getting the sleep I need now. So while travel is absolutely amazing and completely worth it, it is not without consequences. And sleep is one area you can expect to suffer in if you want to travel a lot. Thank goodness I have another month before my next trip into another time zone!