Category: Travel Reflections

 

Growing up I had always envied my friends with mid-year birthdays, being able to tie balloons to your backpack and bring in cupcakes for the class. But on the flip-side, having a mid-August birthday meant I was lucky enough to celebrate wherever my family was vacationing that summer.

 A couple younger birthdays were spent on the island of Kauai. Exhausting days spent waterskiing, swimming and finishing the evening with the “Mustang Sally” sundae at the corner ice cream store.

My 17^th was one of the most memorable, celebrating with my family in Morocco. The waiters of the hotel had constructed a type of Mediterranean cake and did their best version of Happy Birthday.

I don’t say these things to brag. Only to reflect that after years of celebrating getting older abroad, I should be used to it. In fact, spending birthdays abroad are kind of a metaphor for my life at the moment. Birthdays in another country are undoubtedly exciting and usually full of adventure. But what does it really mean to turn another year old if you can’t celebrate with the people who know you? Who’ve seen you grow up, evolve and mature?

I say that this is a metaphor for my life right now because as I continue to travel, I’m learning that I can’t have my birthday cake and eat it too. Traveling long-term and spending quality time with my friends and family are, unfortunately, contradictory. This year, for example, my birthday was action packed. Jules surprised me by taking us to a salsa class, then we went on a factory tour of my favorite rum and capped off the day by getting drunk with our hostel mates and dancing the night away. It was possibly the perfect travel birthday. Culture, dancing and lots of Nicaraguan rum. Still, there is a part of me that misses the tradition of my family signing Happy Birthday off-key. And as much as my new hostel friends cheers’d me with cold Toñas, I know my home friends would have cheers’d even louder.

Travel is by far my biggest passion in life and I love it inside and out. Even if it leaves me broke, lost and full of parasites, I still love it. I wouldn’t trade my life in for anything and I acknowledge everyday how lucky I am. But it’s not without its sacrifice. Where some people sit in their 9-5 cubicle daydreaming of exotic islands, I sit on the beach and daydream about having a normal life. Okay, maybe not while I’m on the beach.

But I do daydream at times of having a normal job, the same bed to sleep in every night, being able to count on a hot shower, having a refrigerator full of fresh (parasite free!) fruits and vegetables and hummus and Greek yogurt and OMG now I’m drooling.

I daydream of being able to do normal things like meet up for happy hour, bitch about normal things like bosses instead of things like bed bugs, make weekend plans with friends, having friends that stick around for longer than 2 days! These things may sound trivial to everyone at home, but these mundane, everyday life things are what I miss most. That, and being able to surround yourself with people who know you. Truly know you! Who know not to be offended by your ill-timed inappropriate laughter, when to offer a hug and when to leave you alone.

Lucky for me, I get to travel with my best friend and love of my life rolled into one. He is my rock and without him I would never be able to travel this long without going insane. But I do miss being able to say those things you can only say to your best girlfriends. I miss the unconditional love I receive from my family. And I miss my friends.

There is a part of me that feels a sharp shooting pain when I see Facebook photos of all my friends getting together or status updates about the latest music festival. I may have even shed a tear after looking at everyone’s Coachella albums earlier this year. Should I be complaining about missing a music festival when I’m living on the Oaxacan coast of Mexico? No. Does it still suck? Yes.

I wish I could fly home for each of my birthdays, or better yet, fly all the important people in my life here, but its not possible. Right now in my life I’m choosing to explore the world over spending time with my friends and family back home. It’s not an easy decision, but it’s made a thousand times easier by knowing that whenever I do come back home, even if I am gone for a year, I will still be welcomed with the same warmth as if I never left.

 

Stepping off the plane after returning home from a long-term backpacking, I feel like a rock star. My family is waiting, my mom crying, shrieking, hugging. My phone blows up and everyone wants to treat me to a drink. Questions are thrown at me a mile a minute and my stories are captivating to my audience. Consciously or not, I feel pretty badass. I am a traveler. One of the elite. The brave. The minority that bucks the trend, ditches conformity to follow their own path in a whole new world. I am a long-term traveler.

Then someone asks, “How was your vacation?” That question is a sharp pin sticking me in my overinflated ego, deflating me into a thin mess on the floor.

Vacation?! VACATION?? I want to shout. It wasn’t a vacation! I am a traveler! I don’t book into all-inclusive resorts and lay on the beach drinking margaritas all day. I get off the beaten path! I connect with the people. Experience the culture. Take local transportation. Eat at the hole-in-the-wall comedors! Okay, there may be some beach-laying involved, and definitely a bit of margarita-drinking. But traveling isn’t a cake-walk! It’s exhausting. It’s challenging. It’s not some vacation.

But it got me thinking. What is the difference between travel and vacationing?

Most travelers would scoff at this question. To travelers, there’s a huge difference. Calling a long-term backpacking trip a “vacation” is an insult.

But to non-travelers, taking 3, 4, maybe even 6 months off to travel Central America, Europe or Asia does sound like a vacation. A break from work and the monotony of daily life to eat exotic foods and see gorgeous sights? Who would turn that down?

So if all I’m doing is “vacationing” why am I so self-congratulatory? Why do I feel like I’m doing some noble, important thing? Why do I see myself as some sort of low-level diplomat? Liaising with other everyday diplomats like the women selling at the market and the men walking home from the fields, a hoe slung over their shoulder. Why should I be so proud of my traveling accomplishments?

Nobody comes home from a week in Hawaii thinking, “I am a cultural diplomat of the world.”

So am I being too self-congratulatory or do non-travelers just not realize what a long-term trip is like?

Well, after much thought, I think it’s a bit of both. Yes, traveling is important. And although I’m not changing the world in any significant way, at least I’m doing something small. Besides the non-profit work we do, I think travel is important on a human level. If we lose connection with our (okay, being cheesy here) brothers and sisters around the world, we lose ourselves. If we don’t take on, at least in some part, their suffering as our own, if we don’t share in their joys and their culture, then we miss out a huge, gorgeous part of what this world is. You wouldn’t read the first page of a book and assume you’ve gotten the point, would you?

Okay, okay, I’ll get off my soapbox. So in that aspect, travel is innately and inherently important. And I’ll stick by that.

But on the flip side, travelers are extremely lucky. It may not be a vacation, but it is a privilege. I don’t mean in the way that jealous friends always say “omg you’re so lucky!!” I worked and saved for a long time to be able to travel now. And I’m proud of that. But I am lucky to be able to travel in the first place. I am lucky to come from a country where employment is available and the currency is strong enough to let me travel long-term in developing countries. I am lucky to have all my arms and legs and my health. I am lucky to be in a circumstance where I am the only one who depends on me financially and I can live my life on my own terms. I am lucky to have parents who happily house me whenever my restless legs direct me back home.

And comments like “how was your vacation?” from tired 9-5ers make me realize how fortunate we travelers really are.

But it’s still not a f*%$ing vacation!!