travleing thoughts

Times we spend away from our normal place experiencing the ways of life of other people are always opportunities for our minds to stretch, our eyes to widen, and our views of our own world to change. If we allow ourselves to be open to the lessons taught through immersion in another way of life, we learn much about our selves and our role in the world around us. Significant trips away from home often serve as containers to which our memories return for the retrieval of important lessons and new points of view. I found this list of things to consider while traveling on gonomad.com.

1. Sooner later, every traveler will curse their packing job. What is the single best thing you packed? What did you shove in your bag but never use?

2. Travel brings our stereotypes into focus. What did you think you were going to find before you arrived and what did you actually discover?

3. Travel awakens curiosity. Now that you’re someplace new, what are you curious about? Even if you don’t know the answers, the questions themselves are interesting.

4. When I’m in another land, locals can easily pick me out as a foreigner. What makes you stick out? Is it your skin? Your clothes? Your shoes? Your bag? Your hair?

5. At home, I’d never boast about successfully withdrawing money from a cash machine, but somehow, completing the simplest of tasks in a foreign land makes me burst with pride. What have you done on the road that makes you feel proud?

6. Graffiti is everywhere. What does the local graffiti look like? What does it say? In Uruguay, I caught these words spray painted on a wall: Tus ojos me miraron, tu boca sonrio, y quede enamorado de ti. Translation: Your eyes looked at me, your mouth smiled, and I stayed in love with you. Three blocks later, I spied these words painted on another building: Bush Terrorista. No translation needed.

7. Some nights, travel wears me out and I sleep soundly. Other nights I flip and flop, my ears tuned to every new sound. Make a list. What do you hear in the middle of the night? Dogs yelping? Roosters crowing? Trucks revving? Bottles breaking?

8. I love shopping, but I rarely buy souvenirs. Usually I’m traveling on a budget, which means I’m protective of my cash. Or maybe I’m worried about suitcase space. What have you seen for sale that you would love the buy but refuse to purchase? Why won’t you let yourself indulge?

9. What songs have you heard playing in the background? In a Santiago taxi, my driver was listening to Michael Jackson’s Beat It. In a Pamplona grocery store, I heard Prince belt out, “You sexy mother fucker.” Walking through one of Bangkok’s red light districts, I heard Britney Spears singing, “Oops, I did it again.” How could I not write these things down?

10. At the back of my Guatemala journal, I jotted a quote from the mouth of my travel buddy: “My biggest fear in coming down here was that I was going to take a picture of a kid and someone was going to kill me. Now I’m just scared of mosquitoes.” I’ve yet to take a trip on which nothing scared me. Something is always intimidating. What scared you before you left home? Have those fears been realized? Have you developed new fears now that you’re actually on the road?

11. In addition to that bizarre mosquito quote from the mouth of my friend, that’s not the only time I’ve written random quotes in my journal. I often scrawl down the words of fellow travelers, hotel clerks and tour guides with no other explanation. For example, in Buenos Aires I caught my husband saying this: “This city exudes sex.”

12. I notice acts of faith in other cultures. I notice a Buddha pendant hanging around a woman’s neck, a Virgin Mary statue stuck to the dashboard of a bus, a spirit house in a Phnom Phen Internet café, a black and white framed portrait behind the front desk of a Saigon hotel with sticks of incense smoking away. What religious acts, big or small, do you notice on the road?

13. Have you purposefully ditched anything along the away? At the end of one trip, I left all my t-shirts in a folded pile at the foot of my hotel bed. I only took one home — the one I was wearing. Why did you leave behind the things you ditched.