My first real experience with travel was after I had graduated from high school. I hadn’t decided what my direction in life was going to be; I thought 17 was far too young an age to decide what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I decided to take some time off to figure out who I was, learn more about the world around me. So while my friends were picking out which university courses to enroll in, I was picking out which countries I was going to go to. I ended up spending three months backpacking through South East Asia with two of my friends. We spent time in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, and Brunei. Since then, I have spent a month in Costa Rica by myself, a couple of weeks in London with a friend, two weeks road-tripping to California, and a month in Vietnam with my boyfriend. All of these trips have been beautiful, fun, revealing, enriching. They have all been amazing in completely different ways.
I went for coffee with Alana, one of the girls I went to Asia with, a couple of days ago and we started reminiscing about our trip. It’s been four years since we went; naturally, a lot has changed. We talked about the time we had no plans on Halloween so we decided to get tattoos; how our only plan was to walk around and find the cleanest looking studio for us to get them done in; how we went swimming again only a couple of days afterward. We talked about how often we partied, how we were drunk for the majority of our trip. We talked about all the strangers we met, stayed with, kissed. We talked about the night we completely blacked out and got separated and spent the next two days sick and exhausted. We talked about how completely absurd all of that sounds to us now.
We’re both still in our very early twenties; we haven’t become boring (well, she hasn’t at least) but we have grown up a little bit. We’ve both travelled since then and our experiences have been different every time. My month in Costa Rica was solitary and a time of personal exploration; while I did meet a couple of people in different towns, I spent most of my time on my own. I read, wrote, fell asleep on beaches almost everyday. Alana and I went to London together as well; we spent a lot of time walking around the city, sightseeing, visiting all of the historical landmarks (and Harry Potter filming locations, obviously). We made friends in our hostel, met up with old ones. We stayed in the same hostel the entire time, walked down the same street to get to the tube every morning, bought coffee at the same cafe. By the end of the trip, we felt like we had a new home there and we loved feeling that way. Adam and I spent our month in Vietnam wandering around different towns, trying to find the best used bookstore in each one. We ended up loving one of the towns so much that we stayed there for half of our trip. And for the first time since I’ve started travelling, food was an important aspect of our trip; we loved trying new dishes, looking for different restaurants to try every night.
My point is, travelling often changes as you get older. At the least, it changes depending on which stage of your life you’re currently in, what you’re going through, who you’re with. You’re going to have a different experience with every new adventure. Alana and I talked about how there are so many people who disapprove of taking time off school to travel, how there were so many people who looked down on us for doing so, and how they doubted our ability to live (what they thought was) a productive and successful life afterward. Almost every single one of those people have told me that their plan is (and my plan should be) to travel after they’ve graduated from university, that it’s more mature, reasonable, smart. It’s difficult to argue against that; it does seem more logical. And while I obviously haven’t experienced waiting until completing a degree to travel, I do have the experience of deciding to go beforehand. And it’s been an incredible one. So as a 20-something who’s been traveling steadily for the past four years, allow me to argue in favour of travelling before you go back to school or taking time off from school to travel. Allow me to defend young recklessness and wandering.
I can’t provide you with percentages and surveys and I can’t tell you with absolute certainty what is statistically accurate. But I can tell you what has been true of my experience. I can tell you this: I know of too many adults in my life who waited to travel the world and never have. I can tell you that I speak to more people on a daily basis who are envious of my travels than people who can relate to them, that I hear far too often of how fast life progresses after university toward real responsibilities, a career, a family. I can tell you that I have never once spoken to anybody who has decided to cast off responsibilities, step out of their comfort zone, go against what was expected of them to travel and regretted it.
I can tell you that stepping onto a plane going to the other side of the world when you’re 17-years-old is an incredibly unique experience; that it is both terrifying and thrilling; that you will feel so brave, so invincible; that you will never forget the texture of that moment. I can tell you that there are fears and inhibitions that you have not yet developed at seventeen and that you should take advantage of that; sometimes the best memories come from not thinking twice, from not looking before you leap. I can tell you that sunrises on a beach in Thailand, while not any less marvelous, will feel vastly different when you’re young and naive and immature; when you and your friends are still a little drunk on a boat back to the island your hostel is on; when you have paint on your face and glowsticks around every appendage; when you’re exchanging foggy memories of loud music, dancing in bare feet, and kissing someone in the ocean. I can tell you that travelling at a young age forces you into independence, challenges you, changes you, and I can tell you that that is important and invaluable. I can tell you that there are things you learn about the world and about yourself that are better lived in perpetual movement than in stagnation, that I have learned more in months of travelling than I have in two years of post-secondary education.
I know that this is not the path that everyone will travel on, or even needs to. I know that there are incredible experiences and unforgettable memories that people gain from travelling on other paths, like going to university or trade school or working right out of high school. But if you are on the edge, if your heartstrings are even only slightly pulling you toward an adventure into a great unknown, just book your flight and don’t look back. There are many things that people regret at the end of their lifetime, but I have never once met someone who regretted exploration and adventure. I’m not saying that this isn’t something you can’t achieve as you get older, but I am saying that there is something uniquely beautiful and transformative about travelling when you’re young. I wish upon every young person coming into their own the hazy memories of stumbling hand-in-hand with people you love through streets littered with illuminated lanterns, the memory of watching the sunset on a beach by yourself and letting go of everything in your life you didn’t need in order to be happy.
I can’t say it any better than how Jason Mraz once wrote it on his own blog: “You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off.” So quit your job, take a couple of years off from school. Contrary to what you are constantly hearing, you really are so young and you really do have so much time. Don’t feel rushed into anything you aren’t ready for and don’t put yourself in a position where one day you’ll wonder what might have been. Don’t settle for anything less than what will you make you extraordinarily happy.
Drop everything. Go on an adventure.
| alex
Streamers of Stardust 