The Will To Travel

Growing up in small east Texas towns, my parents were not well-traveled as children. My father often recants his story of a canoe trip in Minnesota as a Boy Scout that he most likely paid for himself. I don’t remember my mother ever speaking of a family vacation. For them, there was no Southwest Airlines, no Priceline, and no Travel Channel. Outside of a visit with a distant relative, travel was something only wealthy people did. But they knew there was a world out there and neither of them were ever content to leave it unexplored.

During my childhood, shopping was never a matter of walking into a department store and simply buying something because we wanted it. Clothes and toys were almost always purchased second-hand or from the clearance rack. My younger brother and I spent hours amusing ourselves playing quietly inside clothes racks while my mother hunted for bargains. She was an absolute wizard at stretching a dollar. Long before there was mud wrestling, my mother was already tussling with other women over $1.00 bed sheets in the J.C. Penney clearance bins. Once, my mother even sent me to school wearing girls blue jeans because they were on sale. (I think we all know exactly where to place the blame now.) There was always ample food on the table and we always had a nice home, but to say that our family budget was on the frugal side is an understatement.

But there was one thing they would not let us go without – the experience of travel. Long before there was such a thing as a low-fare air carrier, or a hotel bidding web site, we saw much of the United States. We dined with real flatware served by smartly dressed stewardesses (that’s what they were called back then) on wide-body aircraft. We wandered the halls of the Smithsonian, climbed the stairs at the Statue of Liberty, and touched the crack in the Liberty Bell. We roamed the streets of the Magic Kingdom and skied the slopes of Vail. Once we were all piled into the car without knowing the destination. When we questioned our father as to where we were headed, he simply stated, “to the end of the road”. And we did reach the end of the road that day where we picnicked on the beaches of the Gulf Coast.

The desire to travel that was sparked by my parents was further fueled by the friends I made as a young adult, living on my own. My best friend was a tour manager whose job it was to take trips lasting several weeks, where he lead groups of aging American tourists through faraway lands. I marveled as he would prepare for these trips at the last minute by throwing a few clothes, some crossword puzzles, some canned tuna and peanut butter into a suitcase whose outside was riddled with stickers advertising destinations across the globe. After a few cocktails with friends and a short drive to LAX, he would be off again for three to five weeks at a time. His return was always met with great anticipation. We couldn’t wait to see what “treasures” he would bring for us, like the can of can of Diet Coke he brought for me from China, and a kitchen drawer full of hotel shower caps (used for weeks to cover leftover food dishes)from the Hong Kong Sheraton. I would hang on his every word as he would tell us about his latest adventures before retiring for a three-day “nap”.
 
Unable to allow my friend’s 500,000 frequent flier miles go unused, I talked him into allowing me to join him in Hong Kong for the end of one of his tours. It was my first trip outside the borders of the United States and the first time I had ever travelled alone, spending the first four days learning about Hong Kong on my own. It was a thrilling adventure and I will never forget the view of Hong Kong Harbour at night from the Star Ferry, the traditional way to cross from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. The experience changed me forever.

Since then I have travelled as often as I’ve been able to afford it. I have stood alone in the early morning on the decks of cruise ships watching flying fish jump from the path of the ship’s course. I have sat alone on mile-long strands of secluded white sand beach in Kauai. I have been chased down the street in Amsterdam’s red light district by the proprietor of a brothel who was not happy that one of my friends had snapped a photo. I have driven alongside the Germany’s Rhine, gasping at each new castle as it came into view. I have lunched in the square facing the cathedral in Seville and gazed at Renaissance-era paintings in Madrid’s Prado. I have listened the bells of London’s Big Ben as they toll.

Travelling has taught me more than I have ever learned in any classroom. I have learned that for most of the world, there is more than one god and that the very meaning of god is different for different people. I have learned that other cultures have histories that make ours look like a flash in the pan, and that the world does not revolve around the United States, hanging on our every word. And I have learned that the measure of life is not what we have, or where we work, but rather a conglomeration of quiet experiences we do not share with anyone - the scent of incense from a Buddhist temple, the sound of the wind that reshapes the Grand Canyon, or the sight of the sun as it sets over the South Pacific Sea. Travel is not an activity, but an experience that shapes our lives and our view of the world and I am forever grateful to the people who have given me this gift.