After having the blissful opportunity over the past years to do my share of travel blogging, there is only one thing I would resemble it with: the circus – magical yet unconditionally demanding.

Travel blogging is so much bigger than typical traveling. It is about enjoying only best a place has to offer. It is about days extremely packed with activities in ways that you never imagined could be possible, it is about doors opening widely and seeing behind the scenes, it is about being welcomed with profound care & joy, it is about listening to locals and been welcomed into their homes, it is about making new friends in every travel, it is about gaining so much insight for every place that your heart aches when you leave.

But at the same time, if you consider vacationing with (4) kids to be a bit overwhelming, think of the scenario where you also get to document the whole thing, meet with clients and collaborators, photo shoot and manage the schedule of the whole team (if you are the one in charge of the press trip on behalf of a group of bloggers like we did two summers ago). It is a lot of stuff. Is it special and unique? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes, no doubt. But here is what I come down to after almost a year of taking a break and turning down 9 out of 10 of travel blogging opportunities that landed into my inbox: It comes at a cost higher than the tiredness of multitasking. It involves the opportunity cost.

Stay with me for a little. Basic economic theory tells us that when an option is chosen from two mutually exclusive alternatives, there is a “cost” incurred by not enjoying the benefit associated with the alternative choice. It is called opportunity cost. Every choice comes with its opportunity cost, and in the case of travel blogging, it involves all those things you need to put on hold while chasing the magic.

Enter the circus equivalence. So, a bunch of people decide to set up a circus and a performance so extraordinarily magical that when said circus comes to your city you run happily with your kids to enjoy. The day comes, you sit there, pop corn at hand, getting amazed by the capabilities of human nature. If you are the bohemian type you maybe feel a bit jealous for a life of applause, freedom, traveling and adventure. Being under the spell of all this magic one usually never stops to think of the cost that comes with the magic. What did this group of people sacrifice to be able to offer this to the world? Seeing a perfectly curated Instagram grid of a girl (or family) trotting round the globe, how often do we stop to think the costs involved? Usually not at all, because it looks like an easygoing lifestyle and we take it as such. And I must tell you that even for someone with the experience of 7 press trips like me, it was an easy trap to fall into believing that its a project easy to tackle .

In our case, for three years, we traveled and traveled as a family like there was no tomorrow. Those where the years after we lost our own home by a fire. The years that nesting was not an option we voted for. The kids loved the road and those cute hotels more than the below mediocre rented home of ours. Our job was not very demanding or location based and that made things easier. We had nothing to lose. But work started getting more serious and more demanding. Kids started growing and requesting more of a home and more meet ups with friends than trips and  …and I kept believing that I could do it all. Traveling and nesting and taking care of a growing business. One can only imagine the heartbreak when opportunities for press trips and cute hotels came my way only to be infinitely postponed or terminally rejected in the realization that I was so limited in time and energy.

Apart from my personal story though, I have yet to meet a travel blogger that can juggle a “basically stable” life and travel blogging at the same time. No progressing career or business, no growing family, maybe no relationship at all and not even side projects are easy to undertake by professional travel bloggers. It is a life that comes with very defined limits and whenever you see those glamorous accounts on Instagram it is a good think to keep that in mind before you dull down your own life in comparison to what you see going on there. If you are a blogger ready to jump on the traveling wagon be prepared and make sure to expect the expiry date, when all of this will not be enough for you and your heart will start asking for more. Of course you will never rid of the traveling lust -who would like that anyway? But you will surely find other beautiful ways to satisfy it.

(Pictures are from a fine summery day when my sister surprised us with circus tickets for all, kids and adults – and pop corn! Lots of it!)