I've spent quite a lot of my travels just sightseeing. Just travelling for the heck of it. A lot of my earliest destination choices were firmly on the beaten track. How can you know you want to go off it unless you've been on it? So I went Eiffel Tower, an all-inclusive resort in Marmaris, Statue of Liberty, souks... then social media came along and my choices were guided by what's pretty: Cappadocia, rice terraces, Uyuni. I've never strayed from food and warmth though, that's a constant.
Nowadays, I yearn to just spend time in places with interesting traditions where they eat things I've never tried. I want to find a community in which I can belong if only for a little, make connections, learn a skill, teach one myself, be somewhere long enough to read a book, drink a few litres of wine, and see something curious. Like the timescape of a equatorial sunset on fast-forward in Flores. Or go on a wild-goose tuk-tuk chase after a long defunct woodcraft shop three tea-plantation villages over, and stumble upon the best panoramic view out from the toilet stall of a hotel kind enough to let us relieve ourselves. And float along in a houseboat long enough to think myself out of an identity crisis.
My customers also travel for a purpose. I guess a lot of the time I don't know. But I spend more time than my colleagues on the phone, and here are some of my favourite anecdotes for Why We Travel.
- To spread her daughter's ashes: what a way to say goodbye. To retrace her steps on the Great Ocean Road, to linger in the neighbourhood of St Kilda, and to say a final I love you.
- To return to where his father built a church on the Torres Straits islands, where all visitors have to register their intention to visit, but once there, it feels a little like travelling in time because nothing's changed for decades
- To meet the man she's been speaking to online: oh Jayne, she decided to surprise him on Valentines Day and was devastated when he denied all knowledge of her and their relationship after all this time. She made friends though, with one of his cousins who took her side. Such good friends they became that she came to visit her and they went to Greece together!
The stories that mark our travel are the best. I've tried to do this by couchsurfing, playing experimental travel games, WOOFing. I want to find interesting stories. I want to visit my friends before we drift apart too much in life. Ideally, I would do this without risking life and limb, and in relative comfort/warmth.
Literary characters always have an epic pilgrimage, some faraway destiny to which they set sail, or some oppressive force they're running away from. My trip is by happenstance, and I wonder how it will take shape.