"Mastering the art of travel is not accomplished with practice or talent. No school will give you a bachelors degree in not getting shot while backpacking through eastern Africa. Or in avoiding Montezuma's revenge on your trek through Mexico. It's a way of life. Unknown to the majority, it's almost impossible to convey to your friends back home over the course of a single conversation. It's more of a feeling, it's the excitement I experience the night before a trip. The high that comes with booking a one-way train ticket to a place I've never heard of. It's the little things that so often go unnoticed. I used to think back to my wedding day and I wonder, how did I get here? Why me? And then I remember all that I've seen and done, the friends I've made, the countries I've called home, and all the bugs I've eaten by accident."
Conner Layne - The Art of Travel
For the past couple of years I have been slowly changing (and recognizing the change) from the me who was wild, spontaneous and wanted to be responsibility free into the me that likes coming home to the same place, plopping down on the couch with a book or a crochet project and sleeping in my own bed at night, with a little adventuring and exploring thrown in during the normal and abysmally small amount of vacation time allotted to the average American.
Last night, however, I plopped onto my well worn and molded spot on my couch with a blanket and the latest crochet project and turned on
The Art of Travel, a 2008 film about a recent high school grad who ditches his wedding, finds himself the next day in Managua, Nicaragua and follows him through his change from a naive youngster to well seasoned backpacker and world traveller. While the movie itself was of course both over dramatized a bit (Nicaragua is portrayed a bit more harshly than it is, from what I've learned from friends who have traveled there) and glamorized a bit (how the heck does he do all of this without every needing to stop and make a little money?!), it does the trick on inspiring the inner traveler that so many of us suppress in the name of "growing up" and doing what society has instilled in so many of us the path to adulthood and thus happiness. But is it really? And how is one to know without trying?
I know I have done far more than many of those I grew up with - moving to a National Park when I was 20, moving to Colorado when I was 23, the larger part of my 20's interspersed with adventures back and forth across the country, Mexico and Canada both alone and with friends. But will I wake up one day, pick out what to where from the closet in a nice clean house in a suburban neighborhood with views of landscaped yards and picket and wish I'd seen more? Or will I wake up one day, dig some wrinkled clothes out of a backpack in a tent sitting at the base of the Andes and wish I'd stayed closer to home and settled a little more? Will it be high heels and cocktail dresses, or hiking boots and tank tops that will deliver the most happiness? A lot of questions, but no magic 8-ball to provide the answers.
The best answer of all really isn't an answer at all - do what feels right and make the best of it, and never, ever, have any regrets. Yes, the choice for each road means sacrifices of the other. But the choice for each road also leads to endless possibilities.....
