Why travel?

I've been bitten by the travel bug.  It might seem like a given, from this blog, that I like to travel, but in all honesty, it still occasionally surprises me that I've had all these world adventures.  I mean, I don't feel like I went my whole live seeking out exotic places, but suddenly, after college, I was driving across the country, moving to Spain and then hostel-ing my way through Europe.  Then I moved back to Boston and figured I'd be resuming a "normal" life, when again, out of the blue, I was headed to Singapore for half a year and managed to eke some more adventures out of that one too.  So yeah, it turns out I travel a lot, and the more I do it, the more addicted I get.

(Outside the Louvre, fully backpacked up, August 2008.  I took full advantage of their coat/bag check)

For me, travel is attractive for a couple of primary reasons: (1) it's intellectual and (2) it's challenging.  I think the intellectual part is easy to understand.  Traveling allows you to see places that have affected world history, gain a context and understanding of people and groups of people, and just generally get a more complete picture of how the world runs.  But then again, there are many intellectual pursuits, such as... reading The Economist, or playing chess.  But I don't really do either of those things, and heck, I'm in grad school, I certainly get enough of the intellectual part.  On the other hand, the really attractive part of travel is the way in which it is a personal challenge.

Taking the point to hyperbole, the thrill in traveling, is, to me, the thrill of survival.  To break it down to such a basic level is a huge exaggeration in some aspects, less so in others.  A lot of travel is simple and easy and your entire day will go as planned.  On the other hand, a lot of it is completely uncontrollable--the store only takes cash, the menu has no English, or sorry, if the buses don't fill up, they cancel that route for the day.  As I mentioned before, you have to always be on your toes when you travel and make sure you have the basics covered: somewhere to sleep, something to eat, some way to get home.  That is the survival part, and that's the part that is both frightening and the biggest draw for me.  It's like snowboarding--I'll pick a run that scares the crap out of me when I think about it, but making it down that is such an accomplished feeling.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say that in some regards, I do feel as though a big part of what feels so challenging and rewarding is the fact that I've done much of it alone.  There are definitely many times in which I've wished I was traveling with someone else, just to have someone to share the experience with or to simply feel a bit safer around, but then again, in some ways that's the point.  I do feel a little bit less safe on my own, and it's a more gratifying experience to make it back home again.  (Not that I would ever put myself in a position where I was truly worried about making it back home again.)

So there it is, I'm a thrill-seeker and I'm addicted to travel.  I do it not only to learn something but also because it scares me.  Traveling alone is a huge part of that; it has made me a more resourceful and adaptable person and more confident in general.  Of course it has downsides, but if you ever want to feel like you can do anything in the world (and have that almost literally be true), book yourself a plane ticket to somewhere, alone, and have a blast.

(Another consequence of traveling solo is that you end up taking a lot self-portraits.  But look how exciting it is!)

Anticlimactic

Well, I think I'm officially unpacked and "back" in Boston, although I still have a few things that I can't seem to find or remember where I stashed them.   I've been asked if I liked Singapore; I guess my best response is that it feels good to be back.  It's not that I disliked it, but really, Singapore wasn't anything special.  I basically enjoyed myself because, well, what else was there to do?  That's not to say I'm ungrateful for the experience because it's all worth something in the end, and this little endeavor is part of me now, so that's cool.

But it does feel like there was some kind of weird disconnect or time warp in my life recently.  Maybe a time warp isn't the most accurate way to describe it, but I just kind of feel like I went straight back into my life 6 months ago, but with a couple of major details switched around.  The thing is, they're the kind of details that you usually celebrate or at least acknowledge, but I feel like I skipped them, and it's a bit anticlimactic.  In May, I submitted my master's thesis, but my (prior) adviser had signed the cover sheet before he left for a trip back to the US, and never even read the final version or made any real comments about my work.  I also got a paper accepted to a small conference, which my adviser also didn't read, but I'm not proud of it and don't want to present it this fall.

Then I returned to the U.S. to find out that a bunch of my classmates had graduated and had left or were preparing to leave, and got my own diploma in the mail about a week later--it feels like I took some online course or something.  Not long after that, I turned 25 almost without realizing it; as I explained to some friends the other day, in most of Asia you report your age as how old you will be that year, so in my mind I had already been 25 since January.  It also snuck up really quickly and I didn't really do anything to celebrate, so it just made time all blend together.  Which isn't really a big deal, but I guess that's the point I am making here, that none of this seems like a big deal to me.  I mean, people typically feel some pride when they earn a degree, right?  Hrm.  Well, "cheers!" I guess.