Travel guides love to list the dangers of going to a place. This city has pickpockets; this region has dirty water; this country is on the brink of collapse. Just so you know.
What they don’t mention is that one of the worst travel roadblocks isn’t external. When you’re traveling to once-in-a-lifetime destinations, there are three big worries that pop up again and again. If you want to travel and enjoy it*, you have to learn to deflect those unhelpful thoughts. No one told me about this before I set out. It gets easier with time and practice, but I might have appreciated a heads up.** So here we go: 3 thoughts that can ruin any experience, if you let them.
- I’m doing it wrong. I blame travel guides for this. There’s an emphasis on seeing “the real Paris” or “authentic Rome” in just about any guidebook. They claim they can teach to see a place like a local, not a tourist. They promise their advice will give you a more complete, more meaningful experience. But like most purveyors of esoteric knowledge, they’re in it to make a buck. There is no real Paris. There is no authentic Rome. You can’t see a foreign city like a local in a week or a month. I’ve lived in the same small English town for 3 years and I don’t see it the way the locals do. It’s not possible. Stop trying. See a place in whatever way makes you happy.
- I can’t see everything. Traveling means making hard choices. The world is too big, too complex and too interesting for any one person to see it all. If you spend enough time traveling, sooner or later you’re going to leave a city without having seen it’s most famous site or eaten it’s most famous food or whatever. That’s okay. The good news is you’ll only remember the places your visited. The ones you skipped will fade away and you’ll probably never think about them again. Just enjoy what you can, while you can.
- I’ll never be here again. Of course you won’t. And even if you could, it wouldn’t be the same. You can’t slow or reverse the passage of time. All you can do is make the moments count. You can always obsess about the inexorable march of days when you get home.***
I used to think places existed for people. We built cities, we made cultures, we invented geographies for our own sake and so they served us. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think places have their own lives. When we travel to a place, it takes no notice. When we leave, it carries on and only we are different. Remembering that is important. We are not the ones made of stone, so must be the ones who react. Anything else is a recipe for regret.
* Are there people out there who want to travel and hate it? Travel masochists? I’ve seen too much at this point to rule it out.
** Not that past me can read this, of course. But maybe an equivalent person will. There have been vainer hopes.
*** And boy, do I ever.
Travels With Stanchaks 