The Hardest Part of Being a Traveler

Happy Sunday Travel Bugs! How are my favorite globe trotters? I hope that you are enjoying many worldly adventures. Because let’s get real, down, and dirty about the hardest part of being a traveler. It’s not the red-eye flights, delays, long security lines, and allergic reactions, travel diarrhea, bleaching your water, peeing in holes, getting lost, making slight cultural faux pas out of honest ignorance, or not being able to understand the language. Sure, even the best traveler can come down with a debilitating case of homesickness or food poisoning that can be difficult to overcome. There may be times when the last thing you want to do after a sixteen hour flight is get on another airplane to catch a train just so you can hail a taxi. But that’s all part of the territory. You get used to and start expecting those things fairly quickly. Pretty soon ordering foreign currency is as normal as a trip to the grocery and you can make it through shockingly long flights and go through customs on autopilot. It’s all worth it for the joy of what we ultimately seek; an authentic experience that teaches us about the world. The hardest part of being a traveler isn’t the road, it’s when we’ve got this urge, this intrinsic need to fill a void, and every single fiber of our body is screaming go, but we can’t. The hardest part of being a traveler isn’t traveling, it’s not traveling. If I could, I’d travel 365 days a year. In fact, I’ve got routes marked, companies researched, and an ever growing list of cities and countries that I’ve absolutely got to experience, one day. It’s something that’s in my blood, a voracious desire that’s difficult to rope in and impossible to suppress. However, most travelers eventually if not routinely find themselves with this same dilemma-because we aren’t all millionaires with bottomless pockets or unlimited amounts of vacation time. So, while part of what we love is forgetting the real world for a while when we are an ocean away from our everyday realities, we are still bound by the rules we left behind when we return. So, what do you do when you are a traveler who’s stuck, like Travel Girl? Well, I treat the end of most amazing journeys as a bad break-up. Instead of torturing myself by watching sappy romance movies, I break out my travel films. I stock up on wine, ice cream, and by the end of this mourning phase, the staff at the Italian restaurant by my house will know my take-out order favorites by heart. I eat a lot in an attempt to numb the pain then wash the ice cream and pasta down with a healthy amount of red wine (lay off its good for your heart). I cry as I watch the people on screen living out the very thing my heart craves while I am stuck in my boring, bland, American apartment, and have to go into the office the next day. Eventually it gets better and I move from mourning to denial. This is when I scour the web and enter various contests that offer free trips as a prize. I also plan fake trips. I look up everywhere in the world I want to go, decide where I would stay, what airlines fly there, and start perking up. It takes a little bit for this phase to be over. And I never truly let it go- because some day- I’ll go on those trips and see those places. Just not until my bank account has recovered and my vacation time is replenished. Then, finally, I decide it’s time to join the rest of the world and stop flapping around like a fish out of water. The truth is the States have a lot to offer, and eventually instead of resenting it, I try to pick out the best parts of the journey I am missing and apply it to my life here. For example, my last international trip was spent doing a Surf Outreach with IVHQ in Muizenberg, South Africa. So, I followed this up with a flight to Charleston, SC and showed off my new surfing skills. Sure, I didn’t have to scan the water for Great Whites, but it was awesome to have a surfboard under my arm again. I could even practice getting better. Soon after, I woke up at 5am on a Saturday, drove two hours to Narragansett Town Beach, and rented a board. I spent the day surfing with an Australian who had moved to New England with his wife from Melbourne. We had a great time as he helped me out with my surfing and we exchanged travel stories. In fact, I had so much fun I forgot to be upset that I was stranded Stateside. Sure, driving home I wished I didn’t have to head back to my small town home and then daydreamed about visiting Australia. But I got to meet someone new and do something I love, which ultimately is the same fix travel provides.

So, when I got home I looked up other ways to get involved. The surfing was awesome, and Travel Girl is totally open to anyone in New England who needs a surfing buddy! (Hit me up!) But what I was still missing was the interaction with the kids. I googled surfing in Rhode Island, found Surfrider Foundation, saw they had an event coming up, and immediately emailed the chair to ask what I could do and if they needed help. They were ‘stoked’ that I was interested.

So, yesterday I helped run a surf competition for NESS (New England Science and Surfing), something I never would have done had I not gone to South Africa. Again, I woke up early, got in my car, and hit the road. Sure it was an hour drive down the highway not a flight over the Atlantic but at least I was going somewhere. I had a destination and I was on my way to try something I had never done before. Prior to this weekend I had never been to a surfing completion, I definitely had no idea how to run one. However, I met surfers and ocean enthusiasts from the Ocean State, high fived the young surfers in the competition after warm-ups, and got to know them. It felt great to be out on the beach, carrying surfboards, and joking with the kids. I felt like I was back in my element, despite that it was a totally new experience. In a way, you could say, I found a way to hanker that adventurous element through something an hour not a continent away. Had I not gone to Africa and done the Surf Outreach, I’m sure there’s little likelihood of me, Travel Girl, who grew up in the Midwest, helping to host a surf competition. But that’s why travel makes us better people. Because even long after the trip, when we are reliving the journey in our minds and staring at the globe in search of our next destination, we keep what we have learned cumulatively and are able to implore those lessons as we search for the person whom we will ultimately become. As we push our boundaries and constantly stretch our comfort zones, we might not even realize how far we have come until we find ourselves back at home doing something we never thought possible.

I guess what Travel Girl is trying to say is, I feel for those of you who get stuck yet can’t shake the travel bug. It happens to us all but know that you are not alone. Next time you feel the familiar sensation of itchy feet and can’t find a realistic way to work out the funds for an international trip, look closer to home. Being travelers it’s easy to get caught up in the go big or go home mentality. But sometimes, you can translate your experiences abroad in places that aren’t so exotic. Every once in a while it’s okay to settle for going smaller, and with any luck you may find the rush you get is just as great. That’s all for now, but remember whether you’re reading this from your hometown or across the ocean from where you call home, don’t ever lose your travel lust. Not traveling for a traveler may be the hardest, most frustrating obstacle, but we’re lucky, because we always know, eventually, it’ll be time to hit the road again and go big. Ciao for Now. XOXO Travel Girl