Travel planning is a pain. There, I said it.
About a year ago my chaotic past gave birth to a major airline buddy pass, and although I wasn’t going anywhere soon – or so I thought – I accepted.
A few months ago, I found myself going through a major life change – no surprises there given what my life’s pathing in the past 10 years have been. A new home, in a new state, followed by a bright new career laying ahead became parts of my new reality.
However, before all these great things begin unfolding and capturing my fully committed attention, why not take a few months off and travel wherever my heart desires? That buddy pass is nothing but a passe-partout, a master key unlocking destinations my pocket and schedule would otherwise yell a loud no to. That’s what I told myself, those close to me, and my cat. And they all nodded in agreement.
My plan’s skeleton has been constructed, changed and reconstructed a few times, and now it finally has a form. I will be visiting countries with enough time to really experience them, I have my tickets, visas, travel accessories, and enough money to make it through. I feel blessed and excited and absolutely scared, as I do right before any traveling is about to unfold. These are the only moments I get a glimpse of the terror that many people experience and ultimately prevents them from traveling. Leaps of faith have different shapes for each of us.
(When I told my close friends I’ll be driving solo all over Jordan by myself they were not too excited with the idea. But it all turned out fine. Truth is, many times I feel more comfortable driving in a foreign country than the zoo America can be at times…)
My personal worst case scenarios have nothing to do with getting sick, getting robbed or hurt in any way, feeling lost or lonely. One of the things that troubles me the most when I plan my travels in giving myself enough time to rest. Often I push myself hard to see and experience as many things as possible, to take it all in before it’s all gone. I also tend to forget to eat and drink water. As an introvert it’s hard to socialize sometimes, and yet some of my most treasured memories are in a foreign land with people I don’t know if I’ll ever see again.
The worst case scenario though, the one that troubles me the most before I leave home for a new adventure, as cliché as it sounds, is changing so much that I discover that the things I’ve been seemingly putting up with need to change. This is something I’ve experienced in the past, it is real, and it is one of the strongest realizations I’ve had so far about myself. One would think that we should be going after these experiences, that changing is good, that getting rid of what doesn’t fit anymore is crucial, and I absolutely agree. Moving forward is important and a basic ingredient for evolving one’s self. Drastic change though can be painful, and the realization that one’s life has been based on skewed, uncalibrated prisms can be earth shattering.
Channeling the Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of The Moon” album cover, the light that goes through a correctly calibrated prism is colorful, as life is supposed to be. And my experience with traveling does exactly this: it attunes my views, desires and thoughts, and it opens my heart and mind in profound ways, ways that tend to get numb in my everyday “normal” life.
This is why for me, travel planning is a pain: right now I am someone who is looking up and reading on cities and hostels and important not-to-be-missed sights. The person who will actually experience these things is someone else, someone wiser and more experienced, someone I am trying to catch up with in vain. I can only imagine how these things will look and feel like, and how that kind of freedom tastes. If we can agree that in one way or another we’re all part of the machine, traveling is a door to what’s outside its screws and bolts.
If there is anything in this world more exciting than traveling, this is it: my wish for the person I’ll be by the end of this experience, is to come back and calibrate life according to what she discovers about herself and her desires for the future.
(It’s all fun and games until it’s time to return home.)