The More You Travel, The Harder It Is To Find Home
This message is mostly for those who moved beyond the standard week long vacations. Instead, it’s for those of you who are considering longer travel or you who are already traveling most of the year.
Travel, in excess, can be as destructive as much as it is rewarding. By visiting new places, you learn about the world and how to better understand the people you meet along your journey.
Your senses explode with the new sensations: a new flavour in Tokyo, unreal views of the Serengeti in Tanzania, the smell of fresh fruits in Papua New Guinea- a new romance in Brazil, even. Each experience bringing deeper richness into your life as you construct a more whole picture of the world.
Image of People in Papua New Guinea
Everywhere you go your excitement grows, you become addicted to the new, so much so that when you return to something familiar you feel disconnected and bored. This could be your favourite place as a child or young adult, but because it lacks the foreign elements of somewhere you’ve never been, you can’t seem to enjoy yourself the same way you remembered.
The danger becomes an obsession with novelty. An obsession that is as addicting as any other experience in life. You start to prioritise things that are new, avoiding all that is mundane and known.
The problem with this is that it is often in the mundane familiar things where we have the most growth. Every story told holds an element of the mundane being the point of transformation. Brud Wayne did not become Batman by driving a moped in Bali- he did so through years of rigorous training in Bhutan.
Now, not all of us are aspiring to become crime-fighting vigilantes, but we all have our own respective goals. When we place the novel above the chapters of mundane, we end up running in place on a hedonistic treadmill of new foods, people, sights, places, and things to do.
As your writer, I can tell you that I am currently on this treadmill. I don’t really know exactly what it is that I’m working towards so what I end up distracting myself with is something new and exciting. This pulls me further from my path and away from incremental growth. What I lack is a true home base, and in ode to the title, I have so many incredible memories of wonderful places that it is hard for me to choose from. I suffer from so many options, that I am in analysis paralysis. Deciding on one place feels so intimidating- in my mind it means I must lock the door to the seductive novel experience that keeps me thrilled.
The only respite I can think of is to set roots somewhere before you go out and travel the world like a maniac- such as myself.
I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with non-stop travel, but I do think that it is romanticized beyond the truth.
Should you choose to embark on long-term travel, be aware that you will succumb to the irresistible clutches of novelty experiences. The desire within you becomes insatiable- the novel experience is like an elixir that satisfies your thirst whilst increasing the drought you feel once you’ve grown bored of the current thing.
Plant your roots and learn that in life you cannot have it all. It’s like the kid’s hand in a cookie jar- grab a few and they are yours, grab them all, and your hand will never leave the jar.
