Tickles of travelling

The unknowns become familiar

Suitcase done. On the way to the airport. Arrived at the terminal.

You look at the screens.

Gate D63. There you go.

Security. Passport control.

Duty-free. You put some perfume on. “There are good deals“, you think. But you decide not to buy. You already carry all you need. And maybe you just have enough money for the trip.

You walk through the terminal. Zone D. Through the stairs, to the left.

Cafes. Clothes shops. Souvenirs. Restaurants. Luxury cars. Jewellery. Have airports always been shopping malls? Well, it doesn’t matter.

Continue.

You arrive. You wait for one hour. To waste one hour because the airline says so. But you don’t really care. You enjoy those tickles of knowing that you are leaving. That you are about to uncover something new.

What should you expect there?

You don’t know. And that is the magic of travelling. That everything is new and unknown.

It is like that movie that you like so much and that you would like to not have watched, just to watch again it for the first time. Has that never happened to you? It has happened to me. And I love that feeling as much as it frustrates me (the thing about the movie, no about the trip).

While waiting, you observe the people.

Why do they travel? You don’t know.

Do they feel that tickling as you do? It is possible.

But you do feel it. And you know it.

Exactly, what does travelling imply? Do you ever think about it?

“I travel because I like it“. Hmm, enough?

Let me rephrase it. When you ask someone, “and you, what do you like?“ I would bet anything you ask me that the two most common answers are: listening to music and travelling.

Fair enough, we already have a start point. “But, why?“

“Just because I like it“.

“What do you really like?“

“I don’t know…“

Enough questions.

What I like is the feeling of growing by discovering.

Arrived at the hotel. Check-in. That room for yourself. Or that bed for yourself. Where you will spend the night. Or is it more than one night? That’s irrelevant at this point. You feel like it.

Walking in a new city. A mountain. A beach. A lake. A forest.

That passing through somewhere for the very first time.

The feeling of not-belonging and of belonging at the same time.

The unknown that becomes familiar.

The cultural clash. The things that you give for granted that are done the same way as back home.

Two possibilities. First, you haven’t travelled that much yet and it surprises you. Second, the habit of travelling makes you see it as something that happens everywhere. Every time. That things are done in a different way.

The unknown that becomes familiar.

You babble something unintelligible but, in the end, you manage to get a weird food. “How can you eat this here?“ But you are hungry and you eat it anyway. “Shut up. Mum doesn’t need to know that I’m eating this“.

You smile. You laugh inside.

It wasn’t that bad after all. Do not judge before trying. And neither the food. It shouldn’t be a piece of advice. It should be the rule.

Walking. Getting lost. Looking at the map. Asking.

Travelling. Living. Learning.

Some stories that you heard out there. Others that you read about.

Landscapes that you have seen in pictures and look even more spectacular when you see them live. With your own eyes.

Pictures don’t do justice to reality.

And they don’t, no.

Or is it just that, because we have made the effort to go there, we try to idealize what we see by ourselves?

I don’t know that. But the feeling is likeable. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do it. Or perhaps you do things that you don’t like?

And travelling, we said, we like.

And we repeat.

And we boast about a trip we have done. That we are doing. Or that we are about to start.

That is what travelling means to me.

Now, do you travel only because you like it?

Think about it.