Ruminations on travel

It feels weird to think of myself as a ‘long term traveler.’ Especially because thus far I haven’t even been gone two months.  However, I’ve recently realized that that is exactly what I am, and now that all my planning and saving and waiting has become reality, I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Being in a place like India definitely makes me reflect on travel; why I want to, why I like to, and its place in my life. For years now I’ve been constantly saving, not buying new clothes and not going out because ‘I’m saving for overseas.’ And I’ve been telling people that my plans after uni are just ‘to go traveling.’

Traveling makes me happy, and as lame as it sounds, it makes me feel free. At home I’m often unhappy, due to a combination of stress, pressure, and general longing to be anywhere but there, I suppose. It’s self indulgent and extremely first world, to be sitting in comparative wealth in a place like Australia and be unhappy, but I can’t change how I feel. Plus, I always return to Australia so much more appreciative of what I have after an extended trip overseas.

Over intense discussion with fellow backpackers recently- no beer involved, I swear- I have come to the realization of what makes traveling traveling for me, rather than being a tourist. I don’t mean ‘tick off this list of things that makes me a heaps better hardcore backcpacker than you package tour pansies’- I mean, the kind of feeling you get in a place that makes you want to come back even when you’ve ‘seen the sights.’

A friend of mine recently confided that she felt she’d ‘done’ Western Europe, and wouldn’t bother with a lot of it until she had seen other things. This is fair enough, Europe is expensive and she’s very young. But I also find it a bit sad, to feel so much that a place has nothing else to offer than a collection of sights that you tick off your list. However, as we both agreed, there is something about a city like Paris (her experience) or Istanbul (mine) that makes you want to go again and again.

It’s a combination of beautiful architecture and historical sights, lovely atmosphere and smells and sounds and culture that you love even if you’re an uncultured Australian with no history to speak of.  When I’m in a place like this, I think YES- this is traveling, as Agatha Christie did it when she sailed down the Nile, when going to a place meant taking the chance that no one spoke English but it didn’t matter because that was half the point.

To me,  being a traveler is feeling as though you could become a native of the place you are in, and it’s what I do like about backpacking because currently I’m sitting in a café in Northern India watching travelers who have been here so long talk to staff like they’re best friends.

Conversely, you might hate many places, and travel teaches you to think about why you might or might not like a certain city. Not everywhere suits everyone, whether it’s the food, the climate, the pace, the history, the culture- everyone has their own taste.

But you and I might meet one a bus one day, and bond instantly because we loved/hated the same place. That’s why travel is so great. In the short time of this trip, I’ve made several new friends. And even if we don’t ever actually hang out when I’m in Europe or they’re in Australia, we were friends for that time and made each other’s travel more enjoyable.

I think that’s awesome.

This has become somewhat of a rant I fear, so should be terminated immediately! I’m half tempted not to post it because it’s kind of just me rambling on about nothing in particular. Not posting for a long time has made my thoughts something of a mess. Or maybe I just have malaria.