The Dis-comfort Zone

If I said the past few days have been “easy” or “great” or “incredible” I would be lying and I don’t think that’s fair to you all. Travel, while something I crave day and in day out is exhausting. New time zones, culture shock, group dynamic, language barriers, weather (humidity!), a longing for home and family... all of this is a part of the “going” but so rarely addressed. Think about your Instagram feed, or for those of you without Instagram (props to you!), think about the LA Times travel section or photos you see in magazines… they make travel look PHENOMENAL! Photos of girls with unbelievably tan skin and chiseled abs, walking along some sandy white beach and really, REALLY blue water absorbs our minds. Perfect photos of the Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal at golden hour cloud the photos of sleepy eyes and longs yawns; the unexpected changes in plans, the struggle to communicate with the locals or even travel partners, lost passports and money - that is all lost in a sea of infinity pools overlooking the city or people laughing as they swoop down a ziplane. I’ll admit, that is what I wanted for so long. The trendy photos in Santorini or the candids on a beach run (which were most definitely staged). I wanted that aesthetic, but then I started to realize I was losing sight of the actual desire to travel. There is one famous Instagrammer, Indy Blue (@indyblue_) who has that beautiful instagram aesthetic. One minute she’s in Mykonos and the next she’s in Zambia… literally. She’s got the pretty photos and the pretty clothing and my cousin and I send each other screenshots of her Instagram saying, “Ahhh I wish this was my life!” A few months back though, she posted a gorgeous photo on Lake Como in Italy. It was a gorgeous photo but instead of the usual caption about loving her time or thriving she was shockingly honest,

“Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong on this trip...went wrong. I’m talking multiple bags being lost, two stolen debit cards, missed flights, delayed flights, bad weather, wrong trains, no hot water, etc. While we were in Italy, we were in a town with no taxi’s and as we were hauling our luggage on a two mile walk to our air bnb, we actually saw with our own eyes - the Obama’s flying in on a private helicopter to George Clooney’s extravagant estate. Times like this I daydream of what that would be like. Effortless travel. First class. 5 star resorts. Private yachts. George Clooney making me eggs for breakfast. Or even just a normal hotel with decent water temperature. But I often think of my favorite Anthony Bourdain quote: ‘Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.’ And I think that someday, if I’m ever flying a private helicopter to a secluded lake house in northern Italy - part of me will miss the days in my early twenties hauling luggage around for miles, sleeping on airport floors & living off of gas station food. I’m taking that

with me.”

expectation

reality

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade a life full of travel for really anything. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. I think back on every adventure I’ve ever taken and I could choose to focus on the difficulties: food poisoning in Cuba, stomach flu in Nicaragua… twice!, a parasite from somewhere, an eating disorder in France, flight delays from New Zealand, airport sleepovers in Shanghai, exhaustion in Bangkok, a 2 am bus ride from Pisa to Florence… but what kind of story is that to share? All of that is part of the adventure. I could be exhausted at home - how boring is that! Life happens it just happens to continue happening while traveling. Things go wrong at home, so they’re going to go wrong while traveling. It’s so easy to forget that life goes on while you travel. My mom told me before I left for France, “You have to remember that if you’re running from something, life still follows; and you have to remember that if you’re running from yourself, well, that’s one thing you can’t ever separate from” I went to France with one goal: get out of America. I associated my problems with America. Depression? I’m stuck in America! Hate my body? American body standards for women are so messed up! Anxiety? America puts too much pressure on us. It was easy to associate every bad thing with the space that I was in. Psychologically, that makes sense. You associate moments with places. I remember the BEST gelato I’ve ever had and I think of the Ponte Vecchio and the lights shining on different food stands. I remember jamming in the car with my friend, Haley, and I think of our road trip to San Francisco. But if you use places to escape something, life is still going to follow you. I will always crave travel. The new cities, smells, people, foods, cultures… I want to jump right in. But it’s important to remember that those experiences are going to be apart of life. Things will go wrong, plans will change, luggage will be lost, and flights will be missed but with all of that memories will be made and you’ll look back on that with stories to tell and new friends and funny moments.

See my next blog post for an update on the actual trip… this was a little preface :)