It’s an affliction really. It isn’t fatal near as I can tell, but it can sometimes feel suffocatingly so.
Symptoms include (but are not limited to): chronically fantasizing remote destinations, acute desires for foreign culture, insatiable cravings for ‘exotic’ food, and a general sense of malaise about one’s current location.
In the afflicted, the simple flight path of a plane overhead is enough to induce visceral pangs of longing.
Sufferers can be observed daydreaming about travel, talking about travel, planning future travel and reminiscing about past travel. Experts disagree on a course of treatment. Legions of travel related magazines, blogs, and social media groups may alleviate symptoms, but some argue that they may only exacerbate the condition.
There is, in fact, only one sure cure. Get yourself on the road.
Covid has been especially rough. For those of us with wanderlust, just the possibility of travel can keep the longing at bay. I pour over blogs, check SkyScanner for the best deals and research weather patterns halfway across the planet. Doing the workaday thing is bearable as long as I know I can just hop a flight and be somewhere else in the morning.
Covid changed all of that. Yeah, I could probably head down to Tampa for a week and occupy myself. But it’d be like slapping a band aid on a stab wound. I long for the true adventure of dropping into a place where I don’t speak the language, am only semi-familiar with the food, my itinerary is open to suggestions from the people I meet.
It’s been a long time coming. Twenty months in the American midwest is hefty sentence for anyone suffering from a serious case of wanderlust. I’ve been chipping away at a to-do list for the past year. I’ve spent months jumping through hoops – for visas, passes, and a whole new realm of documentation required in the age of Covid.
And finally, it’s all come together.
Lots of people tell me they could never do it – not the long-term, open-ended, full-body-immersion travel that I love. Definitely not on a shoestring. They cringe at some of the conditions – and would most certainly crumble at some of the challenges. Others wish they could and they cheer me on from the sidelines. But they have obligations and other priorities and just can’t take the plunge themselves.
Traveling at this level isn’t so much a vacation as a lifestyle. And it’s certainly not luxurious – that is, if you want to sustain it. But it’s absolutely always an adventure.
There’s nothing more exciting to me than waking up in a new place. I love to go for a run when the sun is rising and watch a city come to life – to see the shopkeepers opening their stalls, the food hawkers busy over smoldering coals and bubbling pots, and the workers swooping in on foot or motorbike to grab a quick breakfast or a takeaway lunch.
I’m particularly drawn to Asia. I always have been. There’s certain simplicity to life there that I just don’t find in the West. There’s less emphasis on getting that next thing: that promotion, that new car, that tight body, that big house – before happiness ensues.
It’s a simple life. Sweep the stoop, feed the goats, make an offering to your god. And then work – long and hard. The man setting up his produce stand at sunrise is still selling vegetables when I get into bed. The woman who spoons broth over a bowl of breakfast noodles is shutting her cart down when I pass in the dark.
It’s not an easy life, but it is simple. And the happiness quotient is incredibly high. There’s just not a lot of contemporaneous bullshit. Theres less striving for things, for status, and way less emphasis on appearance. smiles abound.
In October of 2019, I set down in Thailand for what would become a 20 month odyssey. I had the opportunity to visit Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Some of them more than once. And it changed the trajectory of my life. No longer could I be satisfied with hum drum life of middle America.
Travel is liberating, but it’s not always footloose and fancy free. If you want to draw the ire of the gods, go ahead and create a detailed itinerary – but just be prepared to have your hopes dashed.
The transportation alone can be grueling. Departures and arrivals are just rough estimates. There’s always bureaucratic red tape, language barriers, visa issues, and mechanical problems. Just when you think you’ve mastered it, the travel gods will throw you a curve ball.
A 27 hour bus ride from Laos to Vietnam? Oh, and the station is closed when you arrive?
Eleven hours crammed into general admission on an Indian railway?
An overnight bus from central India to the Nepalese border with a case of the runs? With no lavatory?
And I can’t wait to do it all again. (Well, most of it)
Without the challenges it wouldn’t be life altering. While at times you want to cry, it’s all so worth it in the end. I’ve already encountered a whole new host of obstacles preparing to travel post-covid. I can only imagine what its going to be like on the ground. It’s sure to be next level.
And so I’ve set out. Back to Asia. Back to where my heart always drifts when I feel the sharpest pangs of wanderlust.
Christopher’s Travels 