Marilyn* was 42, and an alcoholic. It took us a while to work that out, too. I mean, she looked more like 45 or 46 to me.

The alcoholic part was easy. While the rest of us would crack our first beers around sundown, making us only part-time drunks, by the middle of the trip Marilyn was breaking out the bottle before lunch. Every day. By mid-afternoon she’d be rolling down the aisle.

There’s a line between drinking because you want to and drinking because you have to, and Marilyn had probably crossed it.

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Spend three months crammed into an overland truck in Africa, and you get to learn a lot about someone. Marilyn, we found out, had been through a painful divorce back home, and still seemed to be in shock. Everything she’d taken for granted had changed.

Wanting to get as far away from the mess as possible, she’d hopped on a plane and headed to deepest Africa, hanging out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of backpackers in a smelly truck.

Funny thing was, she wasn’t the only one running away from something. Most of the people on board had issues back home they’d rather not think about – even the driver, who’d run out of job options. Better to just bury yourself deep in the travel experience and worry about it later.

Spend a bit of time with long-term travellers, and you start to realise this is a common theme. While there are always people out there travelling for the pure thrill of the road, there are even more who set off on the journey not to get somewhere, but to get away from something.

Some have been made redundant from their jobs back home, leaving them with a decision: do I go through the soul-destroying hell of looking for another, not-quite-so-good job, or do I collect my payout and bugger off overseas? I know what I’d choose.

Others never lose their jobs, but just realise their careers have reached a standstill. Perfect time to ride off into the sunset and see the world.

Then there are the post-break-up travellers, who probably make up the bulk of those running away. It’s a classic story you’ll hear from almost every single traveller: “I broke up with ‘X’ after ‘Y’ years, and just decided to go travel. Do what I’d always said I’d do.”

Whatever the inspiration, however, the reasoning is always the same: putting physical distance between you and the problem will help solve it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way, as Marilyn found out on that African adventure.

The further she got from her family, from her kids, the more unhappy she became, and the more she drank. She’d hoped to run away from her problems, but they’d jumped in her backpack and come for the ride.

Travel was supposed to take her mind off things, but instead it just gave her more time to think.

Others on the truck were having similar problems. One night in Tanzania, a German girl drunkenly confided to me: “I had no friends in Germany, now I’ve got no friends in Africa. Whatever.”

She was actually loads of fun, but was still convinced no one liked her. That sort of complex doesn’t change once you get a new stamp in your passport.

Not everyone has such a disappointing experience once they hit the road, though. For some, heading off overseas won’t solve the problem, but it will put it on the backburner for a while.

No need to look for a job when you’re spending $5 a night on a beachside bungalow in Thailand. No need to worry about your failed relationship once you’ve hooked up with that cute Canadian backpacker.

There’s nothing wrong with travelling to get away from something – in fact, it can be a pretty good salve for some of life’s problems, and it certainly puts some of the smaller ones into perspective once you see other people’s lives (fellow travellers as well as locals).

Just don’t expect a magic cure.

*Not her real name, obviously.