Traveling evolves. Those salty, road-weary travelers you’ve come into contact with at the crossroads of some journey at bottom of a mountain, a cafe in Barbados, or a dive in Sydney mutter about how they used to do this and that and now they just travel from their home to Timbuktu because they have their favorite microbrew. Head tilted and with a quizzical look on my face, I contemplated such a notion. Hmm, I thought. Would I just want to travel to a handful of places because of a microbrew? Naw! Never! Not me, I proclaimed!
But, alas, I can attest to the fact that traveling has indeed evolved and I’m okay with this. Instead of checking off countries I can travel to, one after the other, and number my experiences off a bucket list like cliff jumping, seeing volcanos, free climbing among other death-defying feats, I felt my life to-do list fizzle away. When that happened, I wondered what came next?
When I came across yet another salty traveler, I felt compelled to ask how traveling evolved. Then, I started asking other experienced travelers. They confessed of that they tired of cramming in coach airline seats. They missed the creature comforts of home and they became tired of spending time going to places they ended up not enjoying. They also talked about that they enjoyed being home more than traveling. These are people who lived and breathed to travel not the people we think of as “tourists”. Then they told me their preference was to just go to their favorite places.
Once you’ve visited a number of sites, cities, countries, etc., perhaps the world shrinks. Some places over others stand out from the rest. Instead of spending time and money on risks, you gravitate to going to places you love. My husband and I have certainly decided we love a handful of cities such as Ibiza, Bangkok and Miami. But, we went to Bangkok basically by mistake. What if we had not gone. We would never have discovered it.
Any thoughts?! Has traveling evolved for you? If so, how?
danyadarling 