The traveler I’ve become is a far cry from the traveler I have been. Perhaps the times have changed; perhaps it’s me. Likely, it’s a bit of both. I reflect on all the adventures I ticked off my “list” during my junior year abroad—a rite of passage for many fortunate American students (who only later process just how lucky they were).
For those 10 months in 1999 and 2000 when I called charming Strasbourg “home,” my French host family looked on dizzily, fascinated, as I logged more miles than any of us could tally. My massive L.L. Bean backpack became a permanent turtle-shell fixture, my ratty “Let’s Go” a trusty Bible (that no doubt added too much weight to an already-bulging pack).
My wide-eyed friends and I took full advantage of student rail cards, pre-Euro exchange rates, clunky Discman players loaded with tunes and endless rolls of film (which we’d develop as swappable doubles, ideal for supersize scrapbooks). We may have been green, but we were also armed with the zest of youth, the naiveté of newcomers and an impressive determination to get out and see the world.
In those days, I likely viewed my adventures as achievements to check off a roster of musts—a hokey photo “holding up” the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a sunset meal among Santorini’s white-washed walls, a quick kiss with the (arguably unsanitary) Blarney Stone, a morning spent posing with London’s wax museum doppelgangers, an afternoon ogling Mona Lisa’s perma-grin. Then, of course, there was the entire day my friend and I spent bussing to Stonehenge, only to step foot on the sacred site for less than half an hour before needing to climb aboard (in order to reverse the commute).
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for such incredibly privileged opportunities, and am thankful for every last passport stamp, cliché journal entry and obligatory photo (in the pre-social media era, too, no less). During these early travels, I learned how to navigate trains, planes and automobiles in cultures and languages other than my own; in the process, I learned so much about the sheltered teenager I had been and the globetrotting woman I would become. (After all, I turned 21 among Mariah Carey’s high notes, on the sticky dance floor of a subterranean French bar.)
Yet, these days, my approach to travel has taken on a different form. I wander the world with the aim of nonchalantly sliding into a setting, observing its flow and connecting with its people. More than anything, I attempt to align with another place’s rhythm and understand what makes it tick. Perhaps my pace has slowed, but my need for depth has increasingly expanded.
I still crave to see some big sights, of course, but I’ve found I can be just as content wandering a foreign grocery store’s aisles, bellying up at a cozy neighborhood pub, or whiling away an afternoon on the patio of a cafe. This is where the connections happen, and this is when spontaneity finds the space to naturally unfold.
So how does this translate to recent adventures? During an early summer visit to London, I clocked zero touristy activities in the city centre. Instead, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Richmond—the lovely, quieter zone south of the city where my brother and sister-in-law currently live. We strolled lazily along the Thames, popped into local charity shops, sipped lattes beside gossiping grannies, ate conveyor belt sushi next to the Tube and enjoyed pie-and-pint dinners among neighborhood regulars.
I’ve come to learn that—at the end of the day—the most memorable travel moments arise from the seemingly mundane. The quotidian, the routine, the in-between parentheses of simply living life. I’ll never forget: racing a bike through Copenhagen behind a Danish friend to pick up flowers; watching reality TV (that I couldn’t understand) in Torshavn with Faroese hosts, sipping bottomless mugs of tea as all of them chipped away on knitting projects; or joining Irish mates for their Saturday morning ritual of run/cake/tea in sprawling Phoenix Park.
More so than the impressions of gilded monuments and museums, the human interactions seem to strike a lasting chord. There was the Brazilian stranger who took my hand to cross a busy road, the Bolivian bus acquaintance who insisted I enjoy a fresh avocado from her bag, and the Cambodian seatmate who shared her fascinating Facebook feed, revealing a “man in the moon” phenomenon from the night before (that previously had us baffled).
My travel style is ever-evolving—as am I, and as is our world. However, one thing seems increasingly clear: When we toss aside the guidebook and forget what we’re “supposed” to see, we give ourselves the freedom to discover so much more.
