Traveling – in & out

I borrowed the title of the post from a book I really loved – for exploring what travel could mean. Inward or outward, both of which I have experienced quite a bit this year.

One step back. For the last few years, we have been taking two international vacations a year. That just fits our annual travel budget, and the leave calendar at work. But who doesn’t like to take vacays more frequently? So this year, we stretched to fit an additional vacation within India – to Mussoorie. This also came from a feeling that we were being unintentionally snooty by ignoring our own backyard these days. 🙂

The trip made me discover an uncomfortable truth about myself – my creature comforts have changed. Accustomed to a bubble of office, home, select eateries and theatres, flights – all accessed in an Ola/Uber – I found the dirt, slush and the sheer mass of humanity on the streets overwhelming. Me, who has slept using newspapers on the floors of buses, trains and later, even airports, who used to believe that food from roadside stalls was the best representation of local cuisine, and who used to say that the best way to discover a place was to walk. I was reasonably upset and a little ashamed, but comforted myself that one of the biggest abilities that humans possess is the ability to normalise. Given some time, I could adapt, or so I think.

And one step forward. A few years ago, I had written about how my battles had  been increasingly shifting from the diktats of the world to what the ego and self image dictates. As Devdutt Pattanaik would say, from Vijaya (victory over others) to Jaya (victory over self). While I have gained much ground in daily life, and now spend most of the efforts and money on things that we really want and like, one territory that has stubbornly resisted these efforts on both fronts is travel. Let me explain.

It all begins from the choice of destination. The self image of “traveler not tourist” dictated that the destinations be unique. That took a while to get over. But while the destinations are no longer determined by the need to go one-up on a peer group, I still leave a couple of ‘destination achievement’ posts on social platforms. Considerably reduced these days, but they exist, and Instagram really doesn’t help! This, in the past, has had implications on the travel experience – trying to cover as many highlights as possible and a sense of FOMO when a place is missed, dreading the thought of someone asking “Oh, you went there and didn’t see/eat/do that?”

The recent Australia trip helped me gain some ground on this, probably because I wasn’t too focused on eliminating it. The planning was meticulous as before, but more for time utilisation than a checklist. The photos were more for memories than show off value, and what I actually enjoyed most was the time we spent with friends, just chatting.

But I did wonder on the why. I don’t know if the change has to do with age, and a resultant tempered worldview. Or, related to it, an acceptance of the limits of what one can change in self or others or the world. Or an ennui created by knowing that the human struggles one tries to escape from seeing in daily life actually transcends geography. What I do know is that it can’t be just me gaining mastery over my mind. Determinism – both bio and environmental – is no easy foe. And so we continue the travels – within and without.

P.S. I don’t include the blog as social media because the intent is clear – both D and I love to go back in time and read about our travels. 🙂