Thanks to being listed in the “101 Most Awesome Adventure & Travel Twitterers You Should Be Following,” I now have heaps of new travel-crazed readers looking for travel articles. I came in at number 42 and still can’t believe Lance Armstrong beat me at number 9. He’s not really in my league but never mind…
Seriously though, I was honored, and it reminded me that one of the main things people like about my blog is the travel angle and my undying love of travel. So I decided to write a long overdue travel article. Since we’re all self-described travel nuts I thought it would be interesting to explore why we love to travel. Great idea, I thought, and, even better, I can probably knock out an article on that in under an hour. But then my mind started ticking over and I knew I owed it to my delightful readers to live up to my promise to inform, inspire and entertain you. So I decided to put up some travel photos to illustrate my thoughts and raise a smile. Then I had to scan them all in, crop them, optimise them, embed them etc and that quick travel article ended up taking ages. But I think it was worth it. I hope you do too.
What Is It About Travel We Love?
For some travel’s a dream that comes true once a year for the annual vacation. Often people yearn of a greater travel adventure like a year in Africa (me) or selling everything and bumming off to Central America for 18 months with the kids like we did in 2007. For some, travel is a sweet plan for retirement on a boat, a housebus, with a backpack or by train. I haven’t quite decided yet and might have to run with all of those travel plans in my golden years. For me travel has been an all-consuming passion. My whole life’s been geared towards it. I trained to teach english as a foreign language so I could travel and get paid for it, and I did just that for years. I worked in exotic locations like Zimbabwe, Laos and France then saved up so I could travel extensively in Europe, Africa, South East Asia and Australasia. It’s been grand.
Why Do People Travel?
These are my ideas in no particular order.
1. To challenge yourself
My toilet and bathroom when I worked in rural Zimbabwe in 1992. I shared it with seven other teachers and their families. No running water, just a hole in the ground loo and no lock on the door either ~ the towel hanging on the door indicates the bathroom is occupied.
2. To enjoy new experiences
Looks as if my husband, Rich, had fun hanging out with this monkey – he’s the one on the right. This photo was taken in 2006 at a monkey sanctuary in northern Thailand. You can’t experience that in England can you?
3. To find yourself
Following in the footsteps of the Beatles, many people travel to India to find themselves but this traveler looks as if she lost herself. Do you laugh when travelers dress like a local? I do. Here a young hippy chick in India dons the local garb. Okay, I confess, it’s me in 1996. I still claim that I’m the only person to ever put on weight while traveling in India, but seeing this photo it’s hard to believe. I look even slimmer than the palm tree I’m propping up.
4. To learn a new language
No sooner had our daughter started speaking, aged 18 months, than we whisked her off to Vanuatu to learn bislama with the natives. Sometimes called pidgin english you can probably guess what ‘allo’, ‘tata’ and ‘tank u tumas’ mean. I love speaking in foreign tongues, it gives you a whole new outlook on life.
5. To experience new cultures
This man earned a tidy sum by loitering outside our son’s school in Costa Rica and selling fresh coconuts and deep fried plantains chips with lime juice and chili. They called him Senor Pipa – Mr. Young Coconut. I’m pretty sure he’d be moved on quickly if he set up camp outside the kid’s school here in Australia…
6. To party or just to have fun
Travel is fun and lots of people travel with the sole purpose of enjoyment, wild partying or just because the funniest things happen when you’re traveling. Silly things like this sign about a bizarrely-named traditional story from Paama Island in Vanuatu, which especially amused our 4 year old son, Max.
7. To see new things
I’ve seen the Taj Mahal, climbed the Eiffel Tower and the Twin Towers, and spied sloths, tapirs, lions and elephants in the wild, but I can never go within a 50km radius of a waterfall without checking it out. I love the noise, the spray, the constant rush of sparkling water. I was raised in a watermill and we had two waterfalls in our garden so maybe that’s where my love of them comes from. I recommend New Zealand and Costa Rica for waterfall lovers. Here I am with the kids at a fairly decent cascade in Costa Rica. I don’t think I could ever tire or visiting new waterfalls!
8. To eat new food
I like to try new stuff but I draw the line at some things like the crispy fried giant centipedes offered as bar snacks in Zimbabwe. My husband is more adventurous and enjoyed a breakfast of roasted squirrel with a side order of toasted maggots for breakfast during a trek in Thailand. I went hungry that day. I have eaten kangaroo though. It’s quite popular here in Australia, but even more widely eaten in Belgium of all places.
Why Do You Love To Travel?
Thanks for reading Get In the Hot Spot Please add your comments below and don’t forget to get free updates by email now or with the RSS Feed, if you haven’t already. That way, you won’t miss out!
Please Support Me: Tell People About This Website
If you like this article, please Tweet it or email a friend with the link. My clever computer boffin has added a little tool to make it easier for you to email it to friends, or add it to your favorite social media website. I hear that if you Digg it, or bookmark it on Delicious or Stumbleupon, that will get more readers here. Many thanks for your help, I appreciate it.
Other Travel Articles
>> Follow Your Dream, You Only Live Once – Central America, Guatemala >> Daylight Robbery, Little Cove, Noosa >> Traveling Close To Home: Coolum, Australia >> Lessons From An African Witchdoctor >> Sunshine Coast Tourist Guide – Australia Zoo >> 8 Secrets of Mountain Climbing and Life
delta waters
kitty kilian
Red Nomad OZ
Steve Thomas
Tammy
x Corrine/Frock...
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice idea for a post Annabel! And thanks again for putting me in your “reader’s list”, maybe I should have one on my too…hm…maybe in a couple of months lol.
anyways, this post seriously reminds me that I need to travel since I’m still young, and I thank you for giving me that reminder. The reason I want to travel simply because…I am amazed by human creation/civilizations and nature itself.
I want to see the vast variety and possibilities that can be enabled here on Earth, and traveling allows me to extract that experience from different places.
I remember I went to Switzerland last year, and it was just the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was so magnificent that simple language just CANNOT describe it. Maybe i’m going overboard with it, but the feeling it evoked me was just unbelievable and indescribable…lol
So there, that is the reason why I want to go travel Annabel lol, I want to experience the unbelievable and the indescribable.
Steven – Definitely agree on the human need to witness all the amazing variety and possibilities you get from traveling. Not everyone is interested though, some would prefer to stay at home with a nice cup of tea maybe checking it out in a documentary. I just want to experience it all myself though. Well, as much as possible! I’ve certainly seen some unbelievable things on my travels including some that do defy description. I’m sure you’ll find the same when you hit the road yourself.
Nice post to read. I think the people who like to travel a lot are mostly learners and growers. People who love to discover new things, have all kind of experiences, and feel that they’re growing as persons, getting a better understanding of themselves, the word and other people.
Me, I find the actual traveling itself exhausting. Especially if it’s something like 3 days by train. But being in a new place and experiencing it, I love it.
Eduard
Molly – I agree, a rootless existence is no fun in the long run. So great to be able to nip off hither and thither and know you have a beautiful home and great friends to come back to. I’m hoping not to move anywhere else for a while but definitely want to keep traveling if you follow me:)
Eduard – Yes, the getting there is a pain. I do love flying, even the crummy airline meals some people complain about I love. Buses are the biggest pain though and some of the worst moments of my life have been spent on one. I remember literally crying on one bus journey in Turkey because I was convinced the lunatic driving would make us all fall to our deaths over the edge of the rocky mountain path. Bus drivers in India also seem to have an unnerving death wish!
Just got back from a weekend in NYC — been there many times, but I NEVER get sick of it. The weekend before that, we took the girls to Chicago. We all have the travel bug, which I was bitten by in utero, I believe, since my parents moved me and my sis all over the world until I was 12. One thing I will say now that I’ve lived in one place for 10 years (longest duration for me) — it’s great to travel, but it’s REALLY nice to have a real home and a community to come back to.
Fascinating post! I envy your travel experiences. They sound very fulfilling and rewarding. I like to travel, but have thus far confined my travel to locations within the United States. I find that my travel is often limited by vacation time and money. I am also fearful of traveling to places where I cannot speak the language. Looks like I have some things to overcome… time to update my list of goals.
Eric – You’re right, travel does take time and money, that’s why I designed my life to accommodate it. It was my number one priority for many years until I had kids and it’s still pretty high on my list. Don’t be scared of not speaking the language, just look forward to learning a new language and experimenting with a new side of your personality – the Arabic/Thai/Swahili you! In many places you go people will love it if you attempt to learn their lingo. Even if you can only say hello, goodbye and count to 10, they will rave about your linguistic abilities and make you glad for the small effort you made and keen to learn more.
I really love that outfit from India. What a remarkable life you’ve had, and who knows what the future holds…
Connie – Re my Indian outfit: well, you know what they say… when in Rome:) That top was skin tight even then and yet various Indian me complained that it wasn’t tight enough for their liking! Yes, the future is exciting, it would be lovely to have a little snap shot of what awaits us but them again it would spoil the surprise!
People eat kangaroos? Learning what’s different and what’s the same is one of the things I love about visiting places that are foreign to me. Eating maggots and squirrels or little kangas…no, thank you. I have to draw the line somewhere. I’m only a little adventurous. haha!
Just noticed that it’s still the 28th on my time zone. How odd, you’re already in your afternoon tomorrow. That’s the other good thing about traveling. Getting pulled out of our regular grooves.
Cheryl – I guess that thanks to the Internet we can all travel a little bit with the help of our mouse. At some point though, you just have to get our there and do it though. I agree with you on the eating side, however! Yes, we’re always a little bit ahead of the rest of the world here – helps us meet overseas deadlines which is handy.
I am totally addicted to travel for all the reasons you have given, but the greatest reason of all is ADVENTURE! Reading about those yummy centipedes(!) reminded me of a version of this snack we were offered in Cambodia…crispy fried giant spiders. Very scary! Needless to say, I went hungry that day too!
CoralM – Thank heavens, for a moment I thought you were going to say they were yummy! Adventure is hard to beat:)
Oh Annabel how I do enjoy your travel blogs…. Please, please write a book in the style of this blog…come on guys…let’s get her to do it! DO IT ANI!!!!!! for me!
Teresa – Hopefully I will one day! But first I have to nail this blogging thing:) So glad you enjoyed that one. It was fun to get back to writing about travel – my first love:)
I think I just found a new hero! All the reasons you mentioned about travel sound like they came right from my heart! It’s about people, new experiences, the food! I love exploring other cultures and assimilating to new enviornments.
I am also impressed with your blog, just basically starting on mine! Love your content! Thanks
I like to travel to get inspired by people and how the live!
Hi,
I envy you. Your experience is quite something. I stumbled upon your blog from your guest post @ problogger.com. I do love travelling. Wish it would become a full time affair
Regards.
Travel is the one activity that could bring the world together.
If world leaders would do more travel (and really get close to the culture on the ground), we would have government officals that look through a completely different lens.
I always say “Travel changes People”. I know it has in my life.
The only problem is that it is so addictive.
If we would throw off some of the “Western Values” and stop spending so much we would have more money to travel!
Nice Pictures Annabell!
IT IS SO VERY INTERESTED. AND I REALLY LOVE IT SO MUCH… SO KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK…GOD BLESS!!!!
{ 3 trackbacks }