Air-Port-CodesTraveling is something all of us do. Some go all over the world, some take a bus to work, and some go down the stairs sometimes to get breakfast. But only one of those groups will understand these twenty things – this one is for the world travellers.
20. Smell is a Sense of Perspective
Traveling is a journey into the unknown. New places, new people, new foods. But there is at least one thing you don’t tell everyone back home. Traveling pushes the limit on smell. $2 to use the laundry, when you’ll be on a sweaty plane at the airport tomorrow just doesn’t seem worth it somehow.
19. The Feeling You Get Talking About Travel
Whether it is at a parent’s cocktail party or over with the air hostess on the airplane, there is no time you don’t want to tell absolutely everyone what you did last summer.
18. The Feeling You Get When Someone Else Talks About Travel
The same is true when someone else talks about travel. Suddenly your ears perk up, your tail starts wagging and you are already secretly planning to go and visit the place they are talking about.
17. The Looks People Give You When Talking About Traveling
For you, it was the most incredible experience in the world. For you, it was the best thing that ever happened, and the funniest too. So why does everyone look at you like they wish they could staple your mouth shut? Yeah – you are that person now. Good for you.
16. Not Knowing What Day It Is
In a normal working week, in a normal working world, you always know what day it is. Especially on Friday. Traveling, every day can be Friday, Sunday or even a cheeky Thursday if you want to mix it up.
15. The Thrill of Free Wifi
Nowadays, it seems obvious that a café will have wifi. It almost seems odd when a café sells the fact outside the door. Nowadays, it would be as if the café did not serve Coffee if they did not have wifi. But traveling, this fact is a lifesaver!
14. Your Space Is Not Your Own
At home, space is a big deal. You have your own bed, your own room, and your own place for where you put your favorite cereal. Traveling, this space is a little bit smaller. Traveling, the space that you have truly to yourself starts at ends with your bag!
13. Plans Are Flexible
Whether it is a delayed train, a flooded road, or a new love in a new city – travel changes plans. Embrace the tides of change!
12. Foreign Supermarkets
I’m not sure why. I’m not even sure when this became such an intrinsic part of traveling. But it is. The weirdly exhilarating feeling you get seeing what kind of fruit they sell is intoxicating. As is the excitement of seeing an everyday brand from home. For some reason, supermarkets become prime travel destinations.
11. Food is The Most Important Part of Every Day
Maybe this one is the same at home as well. But when you are traveling, food really is an integral part of every day. Planning the view you will eat your lunch with has never been of such paramount importance.
10. Feeling Local
For reasons unknown, everyone that travels somehow believes they are less of a tourist than everyone else. Even as you cling to the free wifi outside the McDonalds, or order food by pointing at the menu – somehow, everyone wants to feel like they are local.
9. Disdain For Other Tourists
This comes hand in hand with number 10. When traveling, even with the pepper spray in the pocket and those travel trousers, everyone thinks they are less obvious a tourist than the others. Ugh. Look at those silly Gringos.
8. A Strange Interest in Museums…
At home, if a friend suggested a trip to the railway museum, you might assume it was a joke. But when you are abroad, a trip to the museum somehow becomes an absolutely necessary part of any trip. And no one seems to know why.
7. … And Churches…
Not many folk spend a typical Friday afternoon snapping pictures of the local church. Yet in a foreign country, a church becomes a bastion of respectability, where all tourists flock to show willing.
6. Snapping Like the Papparazzi
When you get home from the latest trip, something becomes very patently obvious. While you were traveling, you pretended to be a photographer for Hello Magazine, using almost anything as a muse for your latest expose. Keep the photos to one a view!
5. New Sleeping Positions
When you left home, you assumed it was only possible to sleep horizontal, and in a bed. Oh no. How your views have changed. Now you have slept hugging a bag on a bus, on the floor of the train station at 4 in the morning, and even on a few strangers shoulders. Beds are overrated anyway.
4. Writing a Journal
You probably feel a little bit silly doing it. You probably got given a book and were told to fill it with memories. But somehow, you write regularly. And in years to come, you’ll read back over the memories, and wonder what the stain on the corner of the page was!
3. Excessive Social Media Usage
There is probably only one thing more important than traveling for travelers. And that is other people knowing you are traveling. Your usage of social media has tripled during the trip, and you wonder why Facebook doesn’t always ask ‘What’s on Your Mind?’
2. Strangers are Best Friends Now
Whether it is the friendly French couple at breakfast, the travel agent at the airport or the guy you talked with over a coffee in town – this one really rings true. To quote ‘The Kinks’: Strangers on this road we are on – we are not two, we are one. No truer is this than with traveling!
1. Unpredictable is the new predictable
There is very little that you are able to predict while you are traveling. The places you wanted to go while at home somehow just don’t seem important anymore, as your instinct for freedom takes hold. On the road, there is only one certainty: nothing is certain.