Alleppey, Kerala, IN
On travelling
Nomad-ing for a year
nomad | ˈnəʊmad | noun
a member of a people that travels from place to place to find fresh pasture for its animals and has no permanent home:
the withering of their grasslands forced the nomads of the Sahara to descend into the Nile valley | the nomads who roam the borderlands of Afghanistan | [as modifier] : the Magyars were a nomad people of the steppes. • a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer: Dolly was a nomad who had finally taken root in Hawaii.
a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer:
Dolly was a nomad who had finally taken root in Hawaii.
itinerant, traveller, migrant, wanderer, wayfarer, roamer, rover, gypsy, Bedouin; transient, drifter, vagabond, vagrant, tramp; refugee, displaced person, DP, homeless person; dated bird of passage.
Travel is set to become a commodity at this point. But wondering why is that, and uncovering the other side of travel is what made me write these scattered thoughts into one small page. A culmination of questions and their not so confident answers.
Why do we travel?
Travel for leisure…
Travel for leisure is a much recent phenomena. A romanticisation. Hardly anyone was travelling in 11th century to have some fun. With the advent of air travel and globalisation, travel arguably become a 21st century luxury. It became sexy. The activity that you save up for, plan months in advance, execute and share with the world that you did it. The perfect picture in the perfect place. If you are not using your time off from work to travel, are you even doing it right?
But that is not why we travel.
Travel for comfort…
To relax. Bask in the sun and get tanned. Sit on a hammock and sip hot chocolate. Read a book with your significant other. But again, something you can do sitting in your home as well. A lot more comfortable than a dingy bathroom in a shady area your airbnb is in.
But that is not why we travel.
Travel for experiences…
A worthy reasoning, on why we travel. To experience the beauty, nature, materials and people of this far away land that we had only imagined until now. With these we learn, understand and grow in ways not possible by other means. But why travel. There are so many activities, so many things that teach us, why is travel so widely popular.
Why we travel is a hard to discern. We travel for a lot of reasons. And i am sorry as I do not have a complete answer yet. But perhaps the reason we travel is to escape. Chasing new places because we are uncomfortable in the one we currently reside. Only to realise the folly of doing so.
Why I started travelling
With chance and circumstances.
Pandemic had been raging for almost 2 years, but things were looking better. I was planning to move in to a new city with my friends, but the coronavirus had other plans. A week into the plan, another viral wave emerged and we rushed back to our homes (knowing well, the devastation that previous wave had caused).
Frustrated by this uncertainty and lack of motivation to move again, I decided to start travelling instead. Travel to meet my friends, travel to meet new people and travel to be alone when I needed that. This past one year I have been travelling. On and off. From weekend getaways to month long slow travels. From the rugged mountains of Himachal to the beaches and backwaters of Kerala. In cities and villages. Chasing new places. For some reasons far away from my understanding.
Cons of travelling
Everybody knows the advantages of travelling. Social media has already boggled you with why you should travel. But no one comes and tells you how your airbnb was a shit hole or how you almost got robbed by your caretaker (true story). So let me tell you the other side of the story as well.
First of all, travel is not cheap. Sure you can stay in a dingy hostel, eat roadside food everyday, and just not do anything else. But we don't travel just to check the place off our list. So do not believe the travel Europe in ₹10k people. You want to experience the best local cafe in town, sip on some iced coffee on a hot day (or cold if that's your jam, sure is mine). All this adds up, you need a steady source of income. And even if you have one, you keep on thinking how much you would save up if not for travelling.
The bedroom has a weird smell, you got food poisoning from that delicious chole kulcha, you met suspicious traveller with some even more suspicious stories. A lot of things can happen and will happen.
And the biggest problem of them all: You miss people. All the above can be solved for by putting in money, diligently making travel plans or just avoiding certain things. But there is a feeling that keeps growing on you. It is all very exciting at first. Meeting new people, trying new food. Eventually, it starts to catch up. Your friends back in the city. Your parents in your home town. And even some travel friends you made with whom you had to part ways. There is no depth in the relationships. At one point, you just want to run back home. Sit and relax, with the people you love.
And what now
Travel was very fulfilling. And it taught me a lot of lessons and helped me achieve a lot. This website was built in a 3 week long solo escapade to a remote village only accessible by foot.
Travel will be an important part of my life, but not the only one. I want to build a more permanent settlement for myself with the principle of being location independent. If I do not like a my current settlement, being able to easily move is the true goal.
Don't travel to flee, you won't escape the perpetual companion that is, oneself.
Onto planning my next travel 🤭
FOOTNOTES
This is my first (personal) piece of writing in years. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
Also, I am developing a writing process, which currently is a mess which spirals into me giving up and throwing the pages in the bin (metaphorically of course). If you are someone who writes or has developed a writing habit, I would love to understand your process and learn+adapt from it.
