Reflecting on Four Years of Travel

Four years ago today, my father was rushing like a madman to get me to the right airline terminal at JFK airport so that I could catch my flight to South Korea. I had accidentally told him the wrong airline, only to check in and find out about 20 minutes later that I was in fact in the completely wrong terminal.

Upon checking in to the right terminal, I learned that my suitcase was about five pounds overweight. “But I am moving away for a year,” I told the woman at the counter, my New York attitude huffing and puffing with each word. She didn’t even bat an eye. This woman did not care in the slightest, and she simply asked that I step aside, re-arrange my bag and come back when I was ready.

It was a great start to what I thought was just a year of moving overseas. It was a rushed and panicked good-bye with my Dad, a quick hug, an “I barely have time for this hug because my bag is 5 pounds overweight and this annoying airline woman won’t give me a break so I need to deal with this” hug.

Attachment-1

When my dad and I did say good bye, though, in the early morning hours of August 17 2010, neither of us had any idea of the adventure I was about to take. I had planned to be gone a year when I first left, with all of my friends writing me cards and letters that I tucked away into my journal only to read and re-read on the plane over to Asia. They wrote things like, “I can’t believe you’re going to be gone for an entire year” or “I am so proud of you for taking this year to do something so brave”. One year.

image

And then, four years and a crazy amount of mega-tales and mega-fails later, I am writing this post from my family’s kitchen in Brooklyn, a house that wasn’t here when I first left, a home and a family that truly came together as I was gone, and I am almost unable to grasp the multitude of things that have happened throughout the course of time.

A lot of people say travel changes you. So many say that they go on these trips to find themselves, and they feel like they will come back with this holistic approach to life and love and happiness. Well, maybe they do.

Let me tell you this: I am still as batshit crazy as the day I first left home. Seven years total— the past four of which I had re-located overseas in a long-term way — of traveling and living overseas didn’t make me any less anxious of a person, it didn’t make me any less uptight in my everyday life (there is a travel Allie and a real-life Allie). I didn’t come home this zen-like Buddha who can sit on the side of mountain for hours in silence and feel like God is speaking to me through the wind in the trees and the magical chirping of the birds crafting together like a songs around me.

Definitely not. I am a little too New York for that (even though I am actually the least New York person you will ever meet).

Like I said, maybe some travelers undergo that kind of transformation, and maybe there are some who come home from their travels who feel truly changed to their core, who feel like their travels have put an entire spin on their lives. Part of me thinks that is intrinsic to someone’s personality more than the fact that travel impresses this 180 personality flip on someone, but I could be totally wrong. Or, maybe I haven’t had the right adventure just yet.

What I learned about myself

I have changed in many ways since I first left home, some of which are more noticeable only to myself and some of which are more noticeable to others around me. I would be the first to admit that I am still immature in many ways, still finding and navigating my way through a lot of life, and still learning how to approach things in a more emotionally-controlled manner. However, I think I have become more self-aware through the years that I have been away — especially through this past year — because I haven’t had my friends and family and those I love most to hold my hands through the hardest times.

Yet still, that being said, there is a lot about me that has become much more heightened and much more apparent in my personality. I have become a braver person, and though I did lose sight of my ability to embrace being alone whilst living in Sydney, my travels throughout the years have shown me that I am a strong and independent person. I don’t need someone to help me get from point A to point B. I can do anything on my own — it just might take me a little longer to get it done.

I also don’t let fear hold me back from anything, and I am the kind of person who will thrive no matter the situation. I may complain here and there when things don’t go my way, I may not always enjoy whatever it is I am doing (like driving a motorbike with broken headlights through a torrential downpour through the curvy mountain passes of Vietnam), but I’ll do it and I’ll get it done, so don’t ever challenge me to do something and think I won’t follow through.

photo 3

I can travel alone, and I can travel alone really, really well. I’ll become friends with everyone and anyone, share beds with strangers (it always helps if that stranger is a really attractive guy and the night just happens to be terribly cold) just to pinch pennies, find travel buddies in people who happen to be sitting beside me on the local train to God knows where. I can talk about anything that doesn’t involve basic common sense, and I leave a lasting impression with all those that I meet (and all those who read my work).

image_1

I think, though, what traveling has most taught me about myself is that I am not perfect, and I never will be. I have a hell of a lot of flaws, but nonetheless I am still a huge inspiration to a lot of people— both those who I know and those I have never met — in this world. People write me from all corners of the globe telling them that they want to do what I did with my life, or that I have inspired them to see and take hold of the world, or simply people write me just to tell me they are amazed by all that I do and all that I will continue to do.

Travel has taught me that I know no limits, I have no boundaries, and that though I may get thrown off course or for a loop from time to time, there is nothing that will ever stop me.

What I have learned about life

Life happens faster than we can keep up with it, and one thing I will say is that people in the States really don’t know to enjoy it. Five sick days per year? It takes me five days to even realize I am sick. And what’s this 10 days of holiday per year? It takes me 10 days to get to whatever random little place it is that I want to go. Are these people mental? I won’t be able to live like this much longer. US of A, you’re fun now, but we both know I’ll never survive life like this.

Seriously, though. Life does happen quickly, and traveling has taught me how to value the feeling of freedom, how to cherish the distance from knowing what day of the week it is or what time of the day it is. Traveling has helped me to realize that — even though my New York mentality sometimes gets the best of me — we are young only once, and that the time to live is now.

It’s also taught me that there are people out there in the world who are just like me, and that though I may be this relatively unconventional girl from Brooklyn who is off globetrotting her way from place to place, I have made friends from all over the place who share my passion. Travel has shown me that you don’t need to know these people for more than a few minutes for them to really get you, for them to understand what it is that makes you tick or for them to feel like family. Give it a day, and you may not know someone’s last name, but you will feel like you’ve grown up with that person from the time you were little.

I have learned that there is a difference between need and want. Travel Allie lives with next to no clothes, no make up, no pretty shoes or bags, no five dollar coffee every day — none of that. I still like nice things, I still want nice things, I still spend foolishly, but I know that I don’t need any of that. I splurge from time to time, but when I am saving for travel (which I almost always am) a price tag to me equals time spent on the road. That’s money well invested that will serve me well for the rest of my life.

Travel has taught me to be appreciate all those moments where I feel like time does stop, when it feels like all of the wonders of the world revealed themselves to no one but me. It’s taught me to soak in those moments not only for myself but most of all for those who helped me to get to those moments: my incredibly supportive family and my amazing group of friends.

IMG_7417

And that to me is the most important thing I have learned from traveling the world through the past four years. No matter whom I meet and cross paths with, no matter who comes in and out of my life, there is no love like the unconditional love of my family and my friends. Theirs is a love that makes me whole, the one that when they say that miss me my heart truly feels the pain in theirs. It’s an overwhelming, overpowering, kind of love and I may not have needed to travel to see that it is there, but travel definitely helped me to appreciate how lucky I am to have that unwavering love in my life. And one day, I know that I will meet my match who will just take that love and make it ten folds fuller.

All in all, there is no gift like the gift of travel, that is for certain. It has been the greatest thing I could ever given to myself, and it is a reward that will keep giving for years to come.

Like I said: I am not perfect, and traveling will never make me perfect. It will only make me more appreciative of who I am, how lucky I have been in my life, and how much more life there is to be had.

photo 2

Category: Quotes | Tags:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>