anxiety when travelling with others post solo travels
Apologies for the long post. Really hoping someone out here can relate to this because it’s beginning to make me feel like a crappy person. This year I had the opportunity to travel solo for a few months and leave normal life behind. I cannot emphasise how calming this experience was for me. I was able to have my own apartment in a totally different culture and travel around for little trips when I wanted. I was very open and keen to meet travellers and make friends because it felt on my terms. I also met someone during this time and we were very compatible travellers and the experience of sharing this with them - while it didn’t last long term- was very special too.
Since returning to normal life I’ve been on two trips to nearer countries with friends, hosted each time by someone from that place. It always starts the same- I’m excited. But I very quickly run out of energy and whilst I am having a nice time, in the back of my mind I’m very much aware of my social battery, of the next time I get to be alone, of tiny compromises I’m making on budget/ what I’d spend my money on or not / things we are doing. This was especially noticeable in the group trip where it felt like there were so many more emotions, budgets and expectations to navigate. Combined with sharing a room I felt almost violated? I know this sounds crazy and these are all lovely people, my friends who I genuinely care about and want to make memories with. I often felt though a pressure or awareness the whole time or how tired I was slowly getting.
I’ve tried my best to instill boundaries and emphasise it’s 100% a me thing to do with my social battery but it feels uncomfortable to do so. I can’t help but feel ungrateful, harsh, anti social when trying to make time for myself. I love that people are inviting me on these trips and I want to make these memories but I can’t escape the fact that it seems to make me increasingly anxious as I feel I don’t have control or that I can’t really relax. When I was travelling solo I was not an anxious traveller - delays, cancellations, food poisoning, paperwork issues no problem at all. I felt extremely calm because I only had to worry about myself and keeping me happy.
I’m wondering if my group travel days are behind me and it makes me feel quite sad and ashamed. I’ve always been an extroverted introvert - I love initial socialising and I can make people comfortable fast. I can maintain many friendships especially those I don’t need to see very frequently with some level of distance/ down time and I am low maintenance in that way but always up to meet up and catch up right where we left off including deep chats. So I’m wondering if travel is too intense for me in friendships because it often requires extended time together and even sharing a room (something I don’t think I could do now).
Does anyone else feel this way or is in the same transition? I’m currently on one of these trips now and I’m losing sleep over this because I feel trapped yet am having a good time in lovely company. I feel like such an asshole.
So, any tips for dealing with this or communicating it to others in a way that doesn’t offend? I have a few trips in autumn coming up with different groups of family and friends and I am dreading this feeling cropping up again and wondering if I should try to stay elsewhere whilst being aware of how this might come across and be cost it might incur to both groups if I’m not sharing with them.