Have Love Will Travel

There is a strange thing that happens to me when I travel anywhere that is even remotely different from my home. On the larger excursions, say to another country, I imagine the experience will be so earth shatteringly different from what I know that I will have this epiphanic reflection on my whole existence and emerge from my travels a changed individual. Of course, when I actually arrive there and experience them, I wait for the epiphany...and it never comes. I get moments where I sit back and think "wow, this is really cool", but time continues to pass at a normal rate, people carry on with their business, all is normal. 

The two major travel excursions I have been on were, to say the least, beyond cool. A teacher at the university from which I just recently graduated runs two field studies and I eagerly jumped on the train for both of them. 

In a nutshell, the first field study was in Eastern Europe studying the Roma, seeing the after effects of de-communization and re-industrialization of the region, and the cultural tensions in the Balkans. In 30 days we traveled from Prague Czech Republic, through Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Poland, and had an all around amazing time. My friend DQ and I traveled around Western Europe for sixteen days after the field study was over, doing the hot spots in Italy, France and taking off home from London.

The second was in the Philippines where we researched the native inhabitants of the Western Visayan Islands, a people called the Ati. Like the Europe field study, my travel mates and I made the most of our already being in Southeast Asia and spent a week before the field study in Cambodia, and three weeks afterward in Thailand. 

I can't think of more authentic and amazing experiences than these two trips I went on. I mean Christ, we were wined and dined by gypsies in Slovakia, received a stern warning about all the land mines in Bosnia, trekked through the jungle at night looking for natives in the Philippines and so much more. Who does that? Like really?! ...then why am I still looking for the epiphany? How could something get more authentic than the things I've already done?

I think when you imagine something in your head it sort of plays like a movie, and when you see it in real life, it's like finding the Wizard behind the curtain. All the glitz and magic of your imagination is gone and all that's left is the props. Pretty amazing props, but physical artifacts and places none the less, which are no different than the ones you might see in your everyday life, only older or rarer. It doesn't help that most places of note in the world nowadays are so infiltrated with tourists (like myself) that you don't feel like you're getting an authentic experience most of the time. Ambiance: ruined. 

Another contributing factor to my reclusive revelation is the fact that when traveling, you become a slave to creature comforts. You could spend that extra half an hour searching for that restaurant the travel book suggested...or you could just pop into that homogenized McDonalds across the street and sell your soul for a burger and fries. You could go the extra mile and walk up that mountain to see the view...or you could stay at your hostel and watch foreign television all day. 

While the days when the creature comforts take over your agenda are not all encompassing, it feels like such a cop out when you indulge in the familiar. When are you ever going to be doing this amazing thing ever again in your life? Why are you eating fast food you can get at home any day of the week? The fact is, at least for me anyway, these indulgences in comfort are necessary for a person to keep their mental faculties at an optimal level of openness for when one does go out and partake in an "experience". I'd rather be sated and in a good mood when I'm taking in the sights, than be so all consumed with discomfort and irritability, that the full measure of the coolness factor is completely wasted. 

There is a distinct possibility that I wouldn't be able to handle an authentic foreign experience without running for the hills. I haven't experienced the sense of pure untainted wonderment I keep imagining when I truly experience something outside the box and I'm pretty sure this is because of fear; fear of being embarrassed, or uncomfortable, or open to risks.

Maybe in another time my experiences would have been more real to me, that the essence of what I was seeing wouldn't have been corrupted by modernity and capitalistic tourism, or if it was I would still be able to immerse myself in the significance of the experience...because things were simple way back when, right?

While I absolutely appreciate that I am one lucky asshole to have even had the opportunity to go on these amazing excursions, I keep waiting for the epiphany. And while it remains illusive, I keep searching for more and more authentic travel experiences. 

The next of these will be starting in January 2010. My friend TJ has a plan...it's a Van Plan, capital V capital P. She is the proud owner of the coolest of cool retro camper vans on earth and will be living in it for the next two years or so traveling around North America: the Van Plan. I will be joining her in January 2010 for as long as I can afford it and our vague plan consists of me meeting TJ in San Fran and heading for New Orleans. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana.

I never thought I'd be even remotely interested in traveling in the United States, especially after all the security hooplah that has been enforced excessively since 9/11 (sorry peeps, but it's true, loosen your grip a bit eh?), yet I find myself giddy at the prospect of going to Texas. The land of the ten-gallon hat, and so many guns I can't even think about it. Excitement! WTF!! 

Maybe this will be my authentic experience. I think it helps that TJ is an authentic experience in her own right so it can really only go up as soon as we're united in Van Plan-ness. I am prepared for awesome.