Long trips do something funny to you, they open up hours you didn't expect to confront.
One moment you're sprinting across Kuala Lumpur Airport with your backpack half-open, and the next you're in a tiny Peruvian bus station staring at a sign that confidently says your ride will arrive “soon-ish.” That's the part of long-term travel no one warns you about — the pockets of pure nothingness.
On my first 3-month trip across Peru and Mexico, these blank spaces kept showing up.
Waiting for a colectivo in Oaxaca that never came. Sitting outside a train station in Cusco for 90 minutes because I misread the timetable. Killing time in an Airbnb in Tulum during a sudden tropical downpour. These aren't the glamorous bits you see on Instagram, but they shape long-term travel more than the big moments.
Some people fill the time with journaling or people-watching. Others start tiny rituals without realising it — the good kind. I had an offline Sudoku app that became my best friend on overnight buses, and I kept a comfort show downloaded for hostel nights with weak WiFi.
And of course, having a reliable international travel eSIM saved me more than once, from rebooking buses last-minute to checking if the colectivo I was waiting for even existed. When you're hopping between countries, being connected makes the chaos feel a little less… chaotic.
Whether you're slow-travelling through Southeast Asia, backpacking South America, or hopping between digital nomad hubs with your trusty travel essentials, these small routines turn long journeys into something sustainable — and honestly, a lot more enjoyable.
5 Things To Do When Travelling Long Trips
1. Create Small Rituals
Long trips mess with your sense of time, so tiny routines become your anchor.
For me, it's morning coffee — even if it's from a vending machine in a Japanese train station or a cosy cafe in Ho Chi Minh that only takes cash.
During a month in Portugal, I'd start every morning the same way: grab a pastel de nata, sit by the river, and write down three things from the day before that made me laugh. Nothing deep — sometimes it was literally “the hostel cat stole my shoe.”
These rituals make anywhere feel a little like home.
That's usually when someone mentions stumbling across breakdowns of instant-withdrawal systems, often the ones tied to online casinos — not because anyone's gambling, but because those platforms explain why some payments move in seconds while banks crawl.
Suppose you've ever wondered how those systems manage such speed. In that case, you can read on CasinoBeats, where the mechanics behind instant-withdrawal casinos are explained in a way that actually makes sense while you're travelling.
You end up comparing money tools more than anything else, because slow payments are one of the biggest annoyances on long trips.
Someone always brings up how certain digital platforms, especially instant-withdrawal casinos, manage to move small payouts almost immediately. Not because anyone's gambling, but because those systems show how fast a transfer can be when the tech is built for it. The routing is cleaner, the verification lighter, and the delays far shorter than what most banks offer when you're abroad.
2. Pick Up A Meaningful Slow Hobby
Retreat in Cyprus, Armonia
Not every part of long-term travel needs to feel like a chase. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your trip — and your sanity — is to pick up something slow, something that grounds you.
For me, it started on a long train ride through Vietnam. I opened an old sketchbook I'd packed “just in case” and tried drawing the rice terraces sliding past the window. It was… terrible. But the act of sketching forced me to slow down and notice tiny details I'd normally miss — the curve of the hills, the colour of the sky, the women balancing baskets at the station stops. I kept at it, and it slowly became a calming ritual whenever I needed to reset.
Other travellers have their own beautifully random slow hobbies:
- A French guy I met in Hoi An painted tiny watercolour postcards and mailed them home from every city.
- A girl from Chile offered free hair braiding in hostels and ended up making friends everywhere she went.
- A Malaysian couple carried a tiny recorder and captured the “sound” of each city — morning markets, buskers, the lull of night trains.
And then there was me rediscovering yoga. What started as a couple of stretches in an Airbnb living room somehow led me to joining a wellness retreat in Cyprus for a week. It was exactly what I didn't know I needed — sunrise flows by the ocean, quiet journaling sessions, and long conversations with people who were also trying to find rhythm on the road. It became one of the most grounding parts of my entire trip.
Slow hobbies don't just fill the hours — they give the journey shape. They help you stay present, create stories that aren't tied to rushing around, and turn those long travel days into something meaningful.
And with a solid international eSIM keeping you connected, it's easy to stay inspired, download tutorials, or share your progress with the people you meet along the way.
3. Talk to Strangers – the Good Kind
Not the creepy ones.
The interesting ones.
Some of the best moments on the road come from unexpected people:
- A grandmother in Oaxaca who taught me how to fold tamales while waiting for a bus.
- A surfer in Sri Lanka who showed me a hidden cove because he overheard me complaining about crowds.
- A taxi driver in Morocco who insisted I try his wife's couscous because “hotel food is sadness.”
These tiny interactions become the stories you tell years later.
4. Get Comfortable With Doing Nothing
This is the hidden skill of long-term travel.
One rainy afternoon in Sarajevo, I sat for 2 hours in a cafe doing absolutely nothing but watching people sprint between puddles. No phone, no photos, no guilt.
Long trips force you into these pockets of stillness, the delayed buses, the long border queues, the ferries that don't leave on time.
You start to realise doing nothing is actually part of travelling.
Sometimes it's the only time your brain catches up with your body.
5. Build Your “Offline Survival Kit”
At some point in long-term travel, you'll find yourself fully at the mercy of the universe (and terrible Wi-Fi). That's when you realise every traveller eventually builds their own “offline survival kit” — the things that keep you sane when the world decides to unplug you.
Mine has been refined through too many near-feral moments:
- one comfort TV episode downloaded (it's always Brooklyn Nine-Nine — specifically the Halloween heist)
- a super simple puzzle app that works even on a dying phone
- a playlist called “I'm on a bus for 8 hours help”
- offline maps for cities I might visit but haven't committed to
I once got stranded on a ferry in the Philippines — no signal, no announcements, no idea when we'd dock, and everyone around me was shrugging like, “Eh, eventually.” My offline kit single-handedly saved me from spiralling into chaos.
The same thing happened again on a road trip through a California national park. Zero reception, the GPS froze, and the ranger casually said, “Yeah, you won't get signal for the next 100 km.” If I didn't have offline maps, snacks, downloaded podcasts, and my road-trip packing essentials (power bank, sweater, almonds I always forget to eat), I would've cried into the pine trees.
That's the beauty of an offline kit:
It doesn't take anything away from the travel experience — it just keeps you sane during the dead pockets of time.
And the moment something incredible happens — someone yelling “Look! Whales!” on the ferry, spotting wild bison on a highway in Yellowstone, or your long-awaited stop finally appearing on the horizon — the phone disappears back into your bag like it never existed.
Because the offline kit isn't for the adventure.
It's just there to hold you together while you wait for the adventure to resume.
Most travellers will tell you the same thing: these small rituals don't replace the adventure. They give shape to the quiet parts of it. A tiny anchor when everything else is changing, hostels, languages, weather, plans, people you meet for one night and never again.
And when the next train finally arrives, or the sun comes out, or someone shouts that dolphins are in the bay, the phone goes straight back in the bag without a second thought.
