My Biggest Travel Regrets

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Many people will regret not travelling. But does anyone actually regret travel? A group of travel bloggers look at their biggest travel regrets.

“I regret travelling around the world; I wish I’d stayed home instead,” said no-one ever.

Man Vs World

I love that quote.

I was first asked to write this post way back in 2012, before we set off on what turned out to be, almost 7 years of full-time travel. We had the longest “family gap year” ever!

Today it is 2025. We still travel a lot more than regular people, but our wings are clipped somewhat by owning a small farm or homestead. We measure travel in weeks or months now, not years, and we’re unlikely to be able to travel as a family of 4 again.

So these are my, or our, updated travel regrets after almost 60 countries of travelling. I’ve kept the original quotes from the other travel writers involved in this project but most have quit or sold their sites so I can’t link to them.

I’m a rare breed, I’m still in the industry and still loving it. I’ve added a few new quotes about regret, feel free to Pin them. (In fact – please pin them!)

So do I have any travel regrets? I don’t think I do, I’ve been thinking about this for days now. I’ve been tagged, I have to write this post and pass on the baton. This is HARD!

Travel Regrets

Unlike Bethany at Flashpacker Family, I did a lot of travelling before I had kids, I was 37 when my first child came along. I’d had plenty of time to explore the world before motherhood. As it turned out, my favourite way to travel is with my kids. Sharing theworld with your family is magical.

But, that said, had I not travelled so much before the kids came along, maybe I wouldn’t have known that it would be awesome, and not hard. And maybe my job would never have been inspiring and encouraging other families to travel. So I certainly don’t regret any of our travels, ever.

Unlike Simon at Man vs World, I don’t regret not buying more souvenirs and products in Southeast Asia .I bought a whole new bag and shipped it back full of trinkets. They’re still special, 20+ years later.

When we were travelling nomadically we bought very little, we just couldn’t carry non-essential items and we had no “home” that we planned on taking them back to. If, today, I had a burning urge to buy something from a particular country, I could probably buy it online. If not I’d go to that country and go shopping!

I could say, spending months in India and not seeing the Taj Mahal was a travel regret. Nah, don’t care. Soaking up the life of the place is more important to me than the tourist traps, India is bursting with life and I’ll get there one day. In 2025 I still haven’t been there! Our last 3 months in India was spent in the south.

How about the time I went to Crete, spent half a day on a bus, to find the Palace of Knossos closed, is that a regret. Nope, then my Knossos-being-closed story wouldn’t be so good. It’s rather similar to my not-seeing-Ho-Chi-Min-story. We got to the mausoleum on a Thursday, the deceased leader’s day off. Everyone needs a day off, don’t they? It made actually seeing the great man in the flesh earlier this year, with my son, all the sweeter.

Maybe I spent too long in a bad relationship, not pushing any travel boundaries because my partner wasn’t happy to do so. This was before I met Chef, of course. Once I ditched that partner, it was onwards and upwards. But without him, I would never have discovered the joys of solo travel. That can be a relationship regret, and a travel blessing.

How about taking the train to Amritsar and not leaving the station to see the Golden Temple?  No, we’ll do it next time, the station was fun , we actually booked a room there and spent the greater part of a day eating station food. Indian stations do the best food, I recommend visiting them just to eat.  There were too many bombings going on right then, we chilled out for the day and at least we can say we’ve been to Amritsar. We’ll enjoy the Golden Temple all the more when we take the kids.

Unfortunately we still haven’t been.

The time I nearly died diving the Yongala was a bit hairy. But it’s my best travel horror story. I didn’t die, although I was terrified, so I’ll keep that one too, thanks.

And that is where I totally run out of ideas. I’ve travelled, it’s fabulous, I’ve seen the world and the people who make up the world, on 6 continents, over many years.

I’ve read endless books about travel, foreign histories, beliefs and cultures.  I’ve educated myself along the way. School counts as nothing compared to the education travel, and a thirst for travel, gives you. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done so far, incredibly thankful to have lived this unconventional life.

Regretting Spending Money on Travel

No, I do not regret spending money on travel, mostly. The times we ended up in disappointing destinations, maybe. We wasted thousands on a hellish trip to Sabah. Possibly I can regret that. But that one place out of 50 countries, it’s not much to regret.

Spending money on travel and taking time away from my career and the housing market are things I will never regret. Breaking free of the rat race was actually life changing. Life changing for the better.

Being a stay-at-home mum and ditching my career for my kids has been an absolute blessing. So no regrets there either. I think I was born to be a mum, an educator, and a travel blogger.

My Actual, Very Minor, Travel Regrets, Pre-Kids and With Kids

So there are no big regrets. I’ll have to cut my travel regrets down to size, they are a bit minor. As the quote says, fear is temporary, regret is permanent. These regrets are ones that I don’t think I’ll be able to change in future.

Don’t let fear stop you chasing dreams. Was I scared to go to Bhutan and stay in the jungle in Borneo without Chef? Yes I was. Was I scared hiking to Everest Base Camp and crossing those terrifying bridges? I was more that scared. I am scared of scuba diving and water, but seeing the fish is worth the fear. So if you’re scared – do it anyway! Regret is much worse than fear.

1. Being robbed at Cairns airport. I regret not being more careful, but we’d just left Africa, I thought we were safe. They got THE bag, we were emigrating, not travelling, the bag with all the memories and the important things. It’s hard to deal with losing so much precious stuff, knowing that someone just took your camera and chucked the rest in the bin. But, years later, it’s all over, it’s gone. I’ve survived without it. Although it still hurts.

2. Falling asleep on Christmas Eve in Goa and missing the Midnight Mass the waiters were going to take us to.

3. Wasting my money booking package holidays in the early days. It’s way cheaper and more interesting to just book a flight and backpack around a country.

4. Choosing shopping in Hoi An, Vietnam, over a private, personal tour of a village with a local guide. My husband went without me, he ended up at a wedding and had a fantastic day. I got a new dress that I’ve never worn.

5. I regret not taking the kids to Varanasi, India, I think a place that spiritual would have made a big impact on them. I have a feeling I never will now, it’s a destination I wouldn’t tackle without Chef and I doubt the 4 of us will ever travel together again.

6. I regret not adding Japan to our full-time travel itinerary. We never really wanted to go, and I heard it was expensive, so we didn’t. Now that we have been for just 10 days and with only one child, I want to see more and it would have been nice to see all of Japan, all 4 or us together. Japan is amazing, and not expensive. Start looking at our Japan content here.

7. I regret living on the other side of the world from my family. Things are hard now with an ageing family and I just can’t see them, or take my kids to see them, as often as I’d like to. But had we not made that move, all of our lives would have been completely different. Who knows if that parallel reality would be better or worse?

8. I wish we were still travelling full-time today, I loved the lifestyle with every part of me, so did we all. But a point comes when you have to stop. It was forced on us by the lockdowns and by kids growing up. It didn’t feel good to stop and still doesn’t, but life is good in other ways today. I can’t regret stopping travelling as a lifestyle, because we had no other choice.

That’s all that I can think of, for now.

Travel regrets aren’t for me, everything is a learning experience, even the bad stuff. The worst things that happen usually make the best stories. Happy travels everyone!

I’f any of you reading are travel bloggers, I’m tagging you to post your travel regrets, let’s get a chain going again!

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