Traveling seems easy when Condé Nast's Travel + Leisure boasts picturesque pieces of paradise and when your Insta feed is filled with visits to bucket list destinations from around the world. The advertising world does not detract from these images, ensuring "stress-free travel" services ranging from airlines to all-inclusive tour packages. However, planning the adventure of a lifetime isn't always as short and simple as it seems. The hassle of traveling comes with a lot of baggage - both figuratively and literally. The ideal vacations planned perfectly in our heads never play out nearly as well as we imagine them to. And when these fantasies don't match our expectations, we often find ourselves disappointed.
Sometimes, these mishaps are completely out of our control. Flight delays happen. Bags get lost. Google Maps reroutes repeatedly, taking us in circles. Other times, there are situations we just can't prepare for. How are we supposed to know to say "no cilantro" in French when ordering phở? Why are there absolutely no Ubers available when we need to get to our 6:30 am Ryan Air flight? And, of course, we always make mistakes. Missing the last metro home, making a wrong turn, or even ordering something with "tortilla" in Barcelona to realize that - wait, why isn't this the soft and fluffy flatbread that's used to wrap my Chipotle burritos? With traveling comes inevitable misadventure, and it is important to remember that traveling isn't just panoramic views of Paris, champagne in hand, or riding a Vespa through the narrow cobblestone alleyways of Rome. It's the awkward language barrier taxi cab convos, the blaring lights of a bustling night life, and the dreaded creaky hostel staircase that has to be tread quietly in early morning hours. It's finally coming to a consensus with your friends on where to eat for dinner. It's the tastes, the smells, and the rhythms of each new city. In our eagerness to explore as much as we can, we overlook not only the big picture of the world map in our minds, but also the little things. We forget that each region, each city, and each neighborhood are different, unique pieces of the puzzle that make up larger landmasses marked merely by geopolitical boundaries. Instead of taking our time to immerse ourselves in another culture, we jump from place to place, in too much of a hurry to experience the things around us that had inspired us to travel in the first place. When FOMO overwhelms us, we dig a deeper hole of unfulfillment in our search for what we don't have. With preconceived perceptions of places we have never been, it is easy to fall into a tourist trap of endless historical monuments and pristine pictures to capture these sights. But there is even more to see around the hidden corners of each street. To travel is not to make reality meet your expectations, but rather, to discover, to gain new perspections, and to broaden your horizon. And most importantly, to travel is to be humbled by how incomprehensibly large the world around you is, that you have yet to explore. |