Travelling is such a great experience, you shouldn’t need any more reason to do it. Still, we all have have some major reason that hurries us to jump on any train, geared with luggages or backpacks, leaving everything else behind and embracing the world with blind devotion. These are mines, what are yours?
The grey zone
Being a traveller – more or less in the same way as being a student – allows you to stuff every professional goal and life project in a comfortable grey zone. What am I doing in my life? I will find out when I’m back. It’s like postponing any deadline to a date to be set. Are you single? Jobless? Still leaving with mum and dad? No… you are a traveller!
Joke recycling
I love to travel alone and to meet every day new people, sharing experiences, suggestions, pearls of wisdom… and recycling hundreds of times my old jokes. After all, if I had a few genius flashes in my life, why should I enjoy the benefits just once? The downside is that I never remember to whom I told my gags already, which means if you spend more than a couple of days with me you may get a loop playback of the same joke again and again…
My life in a backpack
I am not a terribly tidy person. Moreover, parts of my life are scattered through at least three different locations and every time I look for something I never remember where I left it. When all I own is savagely squashed behind my shoulders, life becomes far more easy: either it’s there, or it isn’t at all.
Runaway from myself
Whatever the reason of your journey, travelling is always somehow a way to escape from yourself. You leave all your certainties behind you, all those social bindings used to identify who you are, and you wear a brand new identity, sometimes even unknown to yourself. But you can’t hide from yourself for long. However, next time try buying different tickets and choose which one to use just at the very last moment!
Reduced hygienic needs
I am not proud of what I’m saying, but truth is ninety per cent of all males showers every day just to positively impress women. What we really can’t wait for is to cross a jungle, a desert or a whole continent in order to have the perfect excuse to simplify our life and suddenly earn tons of free time.
Landscape spotting
Seated on a train or a bus. The open window conveying a warm tropical breeze. The world streaming in front of me as a tumultuous river. All these things together have a balsamic effect on my nerves. Sometimes I even forget where I’m going (or if I’m on the right train…) and just wish for the journey to never end.
Arguable taste in dressing
Maybe the fact that I never find what I am looking for is a partial explanation, but I really can’t say I am a very talented fashion designer. But when you are thousands of kilometres far from home, deep in a new and strange culture, it’s perfectly normal to seem somehow goofy and clumsy. Travelling around the world it’s the perfect excuse to dress as the clothes were chosen by Ray Charles.
Barber shop trip
Since I am unable to dress properly, it would just be obsolete to waste my time to take care of my hair. In fact, I usually opt for self-service: hair cutter set at three centimetres and here we go. But when I’m travelling in countries where the cost for a professional cut is irrelevant even to my pierced pockets, seating on the barber’s chair, closing my eyes and allowing the barber’s skilled hands to take care of hair and beard is a subtle pleasure I can’t turn down.
Cheating on my age
No, I am not that old. And I do not spend my days in front of the mirror counting my wrinkles. And I do not really make a big deal of becoming older. It’s just… I figured out, once reaching a certain threshold, I would have collected more tangible achievements: a well paid job, a family, a house… Therefore I plan on spending enough time far away, in order to restart from 23 where nobody knows the truth.
Home sweet home
There is nothing as powerful as being far from home to appreciate what we usually give for granted. After months of horrible coffee, spaghetti with ketchup, veiled women, stressful cities and wild jungles, crazy Italy, however distressed and hysterical, it’s always a sweet sight. For two, three… even four weeks. Then it’s time to leave again.
