At 54, I’ve learned that time is a bit of a trickster, you can’t quite catch the pace it feels.

Tik tok.
It sometimes feels like it speeds up, other times it feels like it has slowed down. But, did you know that time is also the most powerful travel companion you’ll ever have?

I have often pondered the movement of time, and I remember being at a hostel in Bangkok and having brekkie with a woman who turned out to be an Anthropologist studying the concept of time for backpackers. That was a long breakfast.  At that age I was probably only 26, a few years before I went to study Social Anthropology at university (remember me speaking about those signs??) It was a pivotal point in my life again when I was shifting identity and transformation.

In our culture we talk about backpacking as a youngster as a rite of passage — an accepted period of ‘time out’ where it’s acknowledged to be a powerful tool for young people to learn about the world and to develop skills for navigating life. But I strongly believe that travelling at midlife is also a rite of passage. It is for the same purpose, and maybe just as important — if not more so. A space into which we can move out of the ‘ordinary’ day to day and into the ‘other’ of time and space and culture. There we can release ourselves from the persona that we have been living day to day, year to year. Break down the person we have become, the moulds we have fit into. We can rediscover the world. Life is too fast to let this opportunity, this golden moment gifted to us in midlife, slip away. Tik Tok — time to move, transform and have big dreams.

Just do it. You’re 54, not 84—still got plenty of summers to chase. I keep asking myself, how many trips, how many adventures do I have left? That’s enough to get me packing. No more sitting on the fence.

If not now, then when?

Ten years ago, my world literally changed overnight and I entered one of the hardest periods of my life. Then, five years ago, we were all counting our days through a global pandemic. Two years ago? I walked away from my job, my “secure life,” and into the unknown. And now, here I am — 54, about to step into 55. I am conscious of my life clock ticking.
What I’ve come to realise is that travel doesn’t just move you across countries — it appears to almost bend time.

Travel Makes Time Expand

When you’re at home in routine, days blur together. You wake up, tick off your to-do list, and suddenly it’s the weekend, then Christmas, then another year has flown by.

Time compresses. It’s almost as though you can’t keep pace with its speed.

But step off a plane into a new country, and everything seems to change. Each day feels longer and fuller as you explore. Your senses are alive with everything that’s different. And so are you — different. Because you can choose how to spend that time each day and how you want to fill your cup. You are free to create the rules for yourself in this new time-space, and time seems to give you more each day.

Why does travel feel like it gives you more time? Because novelty wakes up your brain. Research has shown that new experiences (like that spicy street food or getting lost on transport in a new city) lights up your brain making you remember more.  That’s why those moments stick with you.

And the real magic is that the more memories you create, the longer time appears when you look back. That’s why childhood summers, first loves, and first journeys felt endless — they were full of firsts. As adults, caught in our cycles of security and repetition, the years can feel like they’re vanishing.

Travel interrupts that. It reintroduces novelty, slows the clock, and gifts us deeper memories because it’s full of newness. Think of those long summer holidays as a child, when everything was unfamiliar and etched itself into you — travel gives us that again. It’s not just about going somewhere new; it’s about gifting your brain fresh stories to tell, moments worth remembering, and experiences that expand time.

In midlife, choosing to travel becomes a rite of passage — a gift to yourself to grow, to learn, and to re-engage with life in a new way.

Remembering My 20s

I noticed this long before midlife. In my 20s, when I first travelled for months at a time, a summer seemed to go on forever. Each day was packed with newness — foods I’d never tasted, languages I’d never heard, mistakes I learned from. Life was teaching me at full speed, and the days and months felt like they stretched forever.

And I felt it all again as I travelled nonstop for 7 months, then during different periods in between my nomad life now.

The science makes sense: routines, predictable outcomes, familiar days — they all make life feel like it’s speeding past.

Travel is the antidote. It interrupts the familiar. It returns you to growth.

Suspended in Time

Right now, as I sit here in England, I feel time differently again. I’m here for one purpose: my mother, who is unwell. Time feels strange — the days flow one into another. There’s a kind of routine, but it’s always shifting, adapting to my mum’s needs. And underneath it all is the truly unknown: mortality.

In this space, time feels weird to be honest.  Not fast, not slow, but heavy.

Precious.

Every moment carries more weight. That weight is the reminder that life is fragile, that we don’t know how much time we have. Midlife is not something to fear but something to honour — not to let it slip away in routine or in fear, but to notice it. To wake up to this opportunity. Because tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Midlife: Urgency & Energy

Midlife is powerful because we are standing in between. We’ve gathered wisdom and resilience. Many of us are still healthy enough to go on a hike, to do yoga, with enough energy to explore, start over and reinvent. But we also know that health is not permanent.

For me, menopause made this visible. Until then, I’d never really experienced significant health issues. But the loss of hormones reshaped my body and my energy. Things changed. It was a wake-up call, not to take health, wellbeing, or movement for granted.

And that makes this stage of life — with its balance of experience and still-present energy — incredibly precious. We can do anything at any age, but this age has its own power. Because we now have the wisdom to know that the clock is ticking.

TikTok vs. Tik tok

Then there's the other ‘Tik Tok’ stealing my time – social media, and whilst I use it in a positive way, if I’m honest, it’s also one of the biggest thieves of time.

Scrolling can feel like five minutes, but suddenly an hour has gone. The irony isn’t lost on me: TikTok (and social media generally), tick away our minutes faster than almost anything else. A magical 21st-century tool that can also take our time. And our purpose, our precious time, can get lost if it’s used in the wrong way.

In my midlife transformation I am engaging with social media for my passion of writing around transformative power of travel for women in midlife, and I have noticed how much time it steals if I’m not careful. 

Midlife is the reminder that time is precious.

Every hour matters. Every moment counts.

So we each have a choice:

Either let time slip by, watching others and wasting it on our screens…
OR listen to the real Tik tok — your own personal life clock and the world around you.

Time will pass either way. The difference is whether we are conscious to this and whether we choose to live in the present, and to say yes even to the things that scare us.

Time as a Teacher

When I look back, I see my life and my time in chapters.

Ten years since heartbreak.
Five years since a world in lockdown.
Two years since I walked away from my life of routine and security.

And now, at 54, I see that every chapter taught me something — pain, resilience, intuition, courage. Each has shaped me into the woman I am today. And I am still learning.

Time doesn’t stop. Tik tok. But we can choose how we dance with it.

Feeling time slip away? Stop for a second and think…where were you 10 years ago? 5 years ago? 2 years ago? And more importantly: where do you want to be 2, 5, 10 years ahead?

To help, I’ve created The Midlife Time Map — a simple reflection guide to mark your past, reclaim your present, and shape your future. I will post on Wednesday.  You see....the plan was to have it for today, but time is difficult to get my hand on at the moment!   But I will…look out for a post later this week.

Until then...

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