Do you enjoy travelling?

I think if someone had asked me this a year ago I would certainly have answered yes. Exploring a new country, discovering a new culture, meeting people with life experiences so different from my own, all these things are really great and I love doing them. In fact, I think experiencing an alien world to the one I grew up in is one of the best ways I have spent my time. Plus, getting away from the heat of the Scottish sun is always nice.

Why then, have I changed my mind? The truth is, I still think all the things above are incredibly worthwhile. It’s just, they are not really related to travelling. Travelling, by definition, is simply going from one place to another. And that on its own? That sucks. Busses, taxis, airports, planes, waiting in line so you can join a queue, then queuing up to sit and wait. You finally get to your destination and then what do you do?

Maybe you’re in a situation where you can throw yourself into the culture. Meet people who will blow your mind. Not simply travel, but instead, journey. Well, in some cases you can, but in my experience over the past year, a lot of the time you will be checked in to a comfortable hotel that almost certainly exists in an identical form back in the city you came from. From those soft cotton sheets it is not easy to truly experience this new place.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve taken 14 flights so far this year and each one of them lead to an eye opening new experience (or back from it). I regret the carbon emissions, but I do not regret travelling. I’ve met wonderful people, had wonderful times. My girlfriend lives in the US, I cannot imagine how comparatively miserable my life this year would have been without visiting her. The thing is, the new experiences I’ve had were not in any way limited to the places I’ve had them in. A lot of the time, I have been meeting people who have also travelled to that location to attend an event that could have been held anywhere.

If, this year, everything I have travelled for had happened in Edinburgh, where I live, it would have been incalculably better. I have dipped my toe into new cultures, but not in any kind of meaningful way. I know that Latvians make amazing garlic bread (Ķiploku grauzdiņi), but, to be honest, that was probably the deepest thing I learned about the place while I was there.

New experiences that grow you as a person mean you can go back home and live a richer and more fulfilling life. The problem is, if you’re travelling all the time, the concept of home starts to become weaker. I ended up missing my nephews birthday earlier this month because I was in Riga. The more I miss at home, the easier it is to detach myself from the things I miss. There is nothing I want less than to become detached. I would really like to live my life here.

It is not really so bad. I have great friends at work, we are spread out all over the world but have a great time together every six months. I have my girlfriend, whom I could not live my life without who is located five timezones away. Now that I have these relationships I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them go. I need to travel to live my life as I know it but that needs to be balanced with what I have here at home.

So I’m not going to stop travelling any time soon. I would rather that all these things could happen in one place and that I could save travelling for magical new immersions in different corners of the globe, but then, nobody has everything they want.

So, if somebody asks me now, “Do you enjoy travelling?” I say: “Not really, but I certainly like where it gets me”.