Enjoy the Little Things in Italy

I remember the first time I boarded a plane and travelled to a different country. There is nothing quite like the thrill of going to a place you have never been to before. It was in 2009 for a week long school outing to the wonderful Réunion Island. As soon as we arrived I could feel the island humidity engulf and welcome me. It felt strange and I loved the strangeness of it. As Bill Bryson wrote in Neither Here Nor There “I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city”.

And that was when the travel bug bit me. Like many others I immediately made a bucket list of destinations I wish to see. Over the years my knowledge of the world has expanded quite significantly thanks to numerous travel magazines, blogs and websites. This has also led to a proportional increase in the number of items of my bucket list.

My desire to travel has led me to diagnose myself as a sufferer of wanderlust. Wanderlust is often defined as a strong urge or desire to travel. It is difficult to explain that sensation to people that have never experienced it before. John Green captured the essence of wanderlust in his novel Paper Towns with the following:

“I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met”.

How do you cure a case of wanderlust? I am not sure you can. I have come to the conclusion that the best way to ease the ache for travel is to give in to it. Last year I spent most of my savings to go to Europe. It was a 21-day Contiki tour. For three weeks I spent a large amount of time with two friends and a bunch of strangers. This trip enabled me to place ticks next to quite a few of my bucket list items. The Eiffel Tower, Coloseum, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Berlin Wall and a gondola ride in Venice.

In June and July this year wanderlust tugged at me again and I travelled to Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana with a missionary/outreach group. And yes, I did get to place a tick next to Victoria Falls on my bucket list. Just like the Europe trip, the accommodation was simple and a lot of time was spent in transport. But the group was smaller and more time was spent taking in the culture and nature of the surroundings.

When I go through my photos I tend to skip past the ones of me and the bucket list items. I linger at the photos with the people in it. The strangers that became family. In the end it’s the people that make the stories – not the destination. The memory of walking in Rome when a flash of rain made our entire group look like we just came out a shower still puts a smile on my face. It makes the tossing of a coin into the Trevi Fountain seem insignificant.

The next evening a group of us (only girls) were lost at 23h00 and couldn’t find the camp site outside Rome. On the way two young (and attractive) men zoomed past us on a Vespa and shouted something along the lines of “Ciao belle”. This was accompanied by the romantic blow of a kiss. Eventually we found the camp site. We were physically drained and with blisters on our feet, we all fell asleep with a smiles on our faces.

My brother back-packed alone through Vietnam and the first story he related back to me involved him playing a drinking game with about 20 other strangers on a boat. He doesn’t remember their names but he remembers the moment and the joy he shared with them. These experiences add meaning to Rule #32 from the move Zombieland: “Enjoy the little things”.

One of the beauties of travel is to share moments with strangers. You don’t know them and they don’t know you. This affords you the opportunity to reinvent yourself. But you don’t. You are exactly who you are supposed to be in the company of these strangers. This is why travel helps you to discover yourself. Even though you can pretend to be someone else you always end up being your true self. This novelty is independent of destination and available to all that are willing leave behind the comforts and familiarity of home.

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