Born to Travel

I am currently in the very privileged position of being able to make new travel plans. 

I love having travel plans to new places – I love the anticipation and planning of a trip. I love reading articles and books about the place. I love browsing through photography of the people, landscapes and architecture. I love trying to learn the basics of the language. I love knowing that no matter how prepared you feel, you don’t actually know what to expect and it will hit you full in the face when you arrive. Sweep you off your feet and swirl your thoughts all over the place.

I love arriving in a new place. I love the assault to the senses as your eyes take in new colours and patterns, your ears absorb the different sounds of new voices, traffic and animals. Your nose is bombarded by unfamiliar smells, and your whole body is subjected to different temperatures and humidity. I love to discover new things – new words, new sights, new tastes, new people, new ways of doing things. 

I love being in a new place. I love how that initial sense of disorientation resolves into understanding of your new surroundings, and the sense of excitement and accomplishment that this brings. I love the experience of simply being there. The feeling of wonder. I love the escapism of it all. I love to see things that I’ve only ever seen before in pictures, or heard about in books. I love the encounters with the unexpected, and all of the little coincidences that add up to unique experiences. I love to meet new people and hear about their lives, their thoughts, their attitudes. The way they feel about the world.

And once it’s all over I love the memory of it all. The people, the places, the food. I love recalling conversations I’ve had along the way. I love to reminisce about everything. I love to go through my photographs and see how they came out, feel the memories they trigger. I love to place the things I have brought back around my home, so a little bit of there is always here. I love how the memories become me, how my experiences shape the way I think and feel. How I look at everything with new eyes, from a new perspective, and think about things with a new mind.

But most of all I love just being there. I feel like I was born to travel :)