Why Do I Travel

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Why Do I Travel??

Why do i insist on forcing myself to go these places, on my own?

Why do i reject the social norm of a holiday actually being an occasion where you have nothing more to worry about than whether to sit by the pool or the beach that day?

These are but a few of the questons i seem to be asking myself lately, as i frequently wake in the middle of the night in beads of sweat, coming to terms with the reality that i am in fact flying to India in less than 3 weeks.

I'ts not as if i haven't travelled before, including Asia. It's not that i'm going on my own. It's the stepping so far from my comfort zone. It's the not knowing where you'll be sleeping that night. The not knowing where you'll be going that day, who you'll meet, who you won't. It's the not knowing...........It's an adventure.

I don't have to tell you that not everybody wants to travel. Not everybody enjoys traveling, and not everybody understands why people do. People will always say "You must have the travel bug", and i'm certain some of these people think of it as an illness, as if they could think of nothing worse. But everybody has their own opinions and there are just as many people that love to travel, and a huge amount that will always say to me "I wish i did it" or "If i was younger i would definitely go traveling". This reasoning is a big part of what pushes me to go and see these places, to live the life of a nomad, albeit even if only for a few weeks at a time.

I don't want to have lived my life with regrets, i'd hate to not visit somewhere because i couldn't find someone to go with. I love Researching a country, becoming interested and deciding to go, to experience their culture and way of life. The hardest part of going traveling is the deciding to go. Once you're set on going, it's all downhill from there, and that is the honest truth. People adapt, quickly. When i tell people i'm going away, the response i often get is "oh i could never do that". That's exactly how i felt before i went. I would ask myself questions like 'How will i know where to go' 'where will i stay' 'How will i be able to get to where i want to go'. It's surprising just how quickly we, as people, do adpat. As soon as i arrived in Bangkok on my first trip it was like a switch was flicked in me; My senses were heightened, i became more aware, more organised, and was thinking things i hadn't had a need to before. You quickly fall in to a routine of; Arrive in destination...Find accommodation....Arrange next travel...and so on.

These are all the reasons that i do travel. The most obvious being the desire to visit the place i choose, but not just to visit, to immurse myself in their country. A cliche i've read many times is that people say they feel truly alive when they are living day to day, on basic money, out of a backpack. But if truth be told, this is exactly how i feel. When my home comforts are thousands of miles away, when no day is planned more than a couple hours in advance, when you take an overnight train to a destintation with no idea what is in store when you arrive, this is when i feel like i am living my life, creating memories, making friends and truly having the time of my life.

Like i said, it's not for everybody, but i cant think of anything else i'd rather do.

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