To say I have a deep-rooted wanderlust seems an awkward juxtaposition, but somehow sums up my condition. The building that, at any one time serves as a home to the family I’ve created, is my centre, and that’s always been the same, and it’s where I boomerang back to contentedly after each travel adventure. But similarly, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an innate need to travel, to experience places for myself, through my own eyes so I can form my own view of the world. And each time I return, I start to plan the next destination I want to form a connection with.
What I crave is not the ‘been there, done that, bought the fridge magnet’ kind of tourist experience. On the other hand, I’m not enticed into the niche market of ‘dark tourism’ either in my quest to experience something more ‘real’. The all-inclusive package holiday or world cruise certainly have their place, but for me right now, they feel akin to battery farming. I have nothing against my country folk, I just don’t want to holiday with them. What I want is something more organic, something culturally true, where I am unashamedly the visitor, but can quietly watch and partially absorb another culture for a brief moment in time. And lets be honest, I want to imagine myself temporarily adopting this culture in a entirely romantic sense, freeing me from my familiar world.
Alain de Botton, in the “The Art of Travel” could not sum up my feelings more clearly when he suggests, ‘the pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to’. For me, to travel well requires experiencing forms of local authenticity. My abiding memory of a trip to Koh Samui will be smashing a windfall coconut on a rock to taste what is inside. I will forever romanticise the act of sipping a morning cappuccino in a Bolognese piazza as vibrant locals zip around the perimeter on their Vespas. For in those moments I am a Thai beachcomber or a cosmopolitan Italian.
So, give me a city with a heartbeat, an apartment in a residential area, a Lonely Planet guidebook (always) to kickstart my adventure, and a pair of shoes made for walking. My life is then temporarily transported and I can find out a little more of where I feel I am in the world.