Thursday, October 3, 2013

Holidays or Travel

"That's what you do when you travel."
So how is travel different to a holiday?

Getting out and away from comfort and familiarity is full of challenges and rewards, sort of like camping or Duke of Ed. Not always fun but fat for years and formation of a different you.

Both can be vastly enjoyable and invigorating.
Both can require effort and a lot of organisation.
So how is travel different to a holiday?

Possibly it has to do with the state of mind and intention of the participants.

For me, a holiday, intends rest and relaxation, renewal and a break from the humdrum.

Travel does something else. It forces the world onto you, makes you fit into it, makes you adapt to new cultures, unfamiliar ways of doing and being and sometimes, often, being very very uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable seat in the back of a hot bus, bumping over potholes, with people you don't know but are your family for a while.
Uncomfortable language demands and communication.
Eating food you are not sure of when you don't want to eat and not getting food when you really need it. Feast then famine.
Uncomfortable having to face uncertain toilets in uncertain places with uncertain customs.
Uncomfortable being sick and hot and welcoming the worst of dark and smelly holes in the floor.
Uncomfortable being challenged to see yourself through other eyes.
Sobering to see the way that many have to live with little choice.
Achy places, chafes and bruises. Vain and arrogant thinking money means you are somehow better.

The tell at home stories may sound glitzy glam and tell of all the good (except for those who like to dramatise the hard bits) and we will share the richness to benefit the listener, but travel sloughs off a little more than holidays ever do.

Rough edges may be smoother, and heads a little wiser, but travel reveals a hidden core. The who you really are and what you really feel, warts and other functions all, with others not your family.
When sick and tired and hungry and uncomfortable travel is less glitz and glam. The worst of home seems welcome.
While others envy the holiday I wonder if they would envy the travel.
Those who have travelled know exactly what it is all about and see the honing worth it.

No comments:

Post a Comment