On Travel
By: Neha Kirpalani
Tags: Travel, Summer, Finding Yourself, Europe, Love

“Travel

As much as you can.

As far as you can

As long as you can.

Life’s not meant to be lived in one place.”

Me enjoying a gorgeous morning in Edinburgh

While to some, the travel bug may be second nature; it took me more than 25 years to learn to love to travel.

When I was younger, I hated the idea of traveling.

Summer vacations usually brought with them a minimum of one family trip; sometimes two. While the prospect of spending an entire summer away from home seems great on paper, the reality was that every year we ended up traveling to one city alone — Bombay. We stayed with family and did the same things year after year. At the most, the two-month holiday would be punctuated by a short weekend getaway to a nearby spot — Goa, Alibaug, or perhaps Pune. That was it. We never ventured further; we never varied the routine. And so, to my young mind, travel meant long summer days spent in the same place; a slight variation of out routine at home.

However, to be fair, I did enjoy spending time with my grandma — and my cousins. I loved the endless summer days that stretched into nights. I loved the spontaneity of my days — we’d go shopping or to the cinema or to a restaurant literally at the drop of a hat. Sometimes, we’d be asked to get ready in a matter of minutes, only to be whisked away for a long drive down Marine Drive, which inevitably ended with a pit-stop for ice cream at Cream Centre, or falooda at Bachelors.

Most of all, I loved being surrounded by family; it was a welcome change from being alone.

I understand now that my definition of travel was severely limited by the kind of “traveling” that my parents inexplicably seemed to favour. We rarely ever took anything but these family trips. When we did, my memories of those trips are tainted by my parents squabbling over the smallest things — for instance, my dad wanting to spend as little time outdoors actually seeing things, but rather use up all vacation time by the pool (a beer in hand) or at a local pub (a whisky soda in hand) or at a restaurant (eating, yes, but also making sure there is always alcohol at hand). By contrast, my mother’s idea of a great vacation involved spending all her time shopping, relaxing at a spa, or in bed. She still loves hotel rooms and claims the sleep you get in a hotel bed is far superior to home-bed sleep. She believes sleep is a holiday in itself.

So where did that leave me?

Nobody ever asked if I was interested in activities like playing sport, or rock-climbing, or visiting museums, galleries, and of course libraries. Nobody cared that they were dragging a 10-year old from mall to restaurant to pub and back to the hotel room, and that not one of these places was of any interest to me?

And then there was the hassle of remembering to bring everything you could possibly need for a trip of a stipulated amount of time; the actual torment of packing, going from one place to another doing things others wanted to do, while I’d much rather be in bed, reading. Then came travel during my teens — frequent trips to the US sounds more exciting than they actually were. Here, too, were endless trips to the mall (courtesy my shopaholic mother) as well as visits to various family members’ homes. New York was exciting and enticing; and I wanted to run in a hundred different directions and grow an extra pair of eyes to drink it all in. Unfortunately, we only visited the Big Apple a grand total of 3 times in 9 years; each trip into the city shorter than the last and marred by the usual touristy sites.

All in all, my experience of travel was abysmally one-dimensional; or two, at best. It’s no wonder that I hated traveling until I got to my late teens and early twenties, which is when I started traveling with friends, and, more importantly, started traveling for fun.

Even then, I could just about swallow the idea of taking trips. I only did it because my friends wanted me to come along. Again, given a choice I would have much rather spent time doing things in my own city during the holiday season.

But the travel bug really kicked in last year when I began traveling during my Masters’.

Here was an entire continent that lay before me, unexplored, waiting to be seen and loved. If Paris stole my heart, Prague appeased my soul. Munich and Berlin gave me a taste of streamlined beauty, while Salzburg took my breath away. The sweeping chateau of Versailles introduced me to opulence and grandeur of the kind I’d never witnessed before. The streets of London quickened my pulse and gave me a sense of giddy independence (it was, after all, my first solo trip ever!).

The winding lanes of Prague are a traveler’s delight

Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh challenged me during my first hike, the Peak District made the city girl in me fall head over heels for nature. While Vienna was a hazy, fast-paced, alcohol-fuelled blur, Florence was the opposite — long, languid afternoons walking back and forth across Ponte Vecchio (Florence’s oldest bridge). Rome was hot, hot, hot in July — a heat even we in India have never fully lived through — but oh my God, the food!

If I was to die tomorrow, I’d like for cacio e pepe to be my last meal.

Granted, the fact that these cities were infinitely more beautiful than anything I had experienced before probably led to my new-found zest for travel. But I think it’s more than that.

In my mind, this passion for travel coincided with my desire to learn more about this often-crazy-but-always-exciting world we live in.

At some point, I think everyone faces the reality of their mortality and so wants to make as much of their time left on this planet. I guess it’s why people who retire have ‘travel’ right on top of their bucket lists.

The more we travel, the more we see

The more we see, the more we think

The more we think, the more compassionate we become

And the more compassionate we are

The more peace and joy we create

In this world.

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Travel taught me things about myself I couldn’t have discovered on my own. It made me face my fears and doubts. It challenged me to push myself in ways I wouldn’t have, ordinarily. Anyone who considers himself a serious traveller knows the FOMO on even one thing on the list; and pushing yourself when you’ve walked/ran/climbed over 20–30 kilometres a day to do “one more thing” is the adrenaline rush so generously bestowed by travel.

Travel, not just to meet other cultures, languages, cuisines, and people; but to really meet a new version of yourself.

Trust me, you won’t be sorry.