What I Love & Hate About Being A Part-Time Traveller!

For everything I love about travelling there must be 10 things I hate!

I love the planning phase – reading guidebooks, surfing the internet, putting together itineraries and of course the best part, booking flights and accommodation. What I hate is deciding what to take and actually packing it. I end up dragging the contents of my wardrobe out and looking at it for a week before actually choosing what I will be lugging on my back to another country. Then there’s the actual act of packing! There are a million and one other things that I would rather be doing than ranger rolling stuff that I probably won’t even wear. The next step – ramming them into my backpack which of course won’t close resulting in me swearing at it, tipping the contents back out onto the floor and having to start the whole process from scratch AGAIN. Note to self – STOP OVERPACKING!!!

I hate flying so the people who say ‘my trip starts the second I get to the airport’ I personally want to punch in the face. You will find me lobbing my backpack at the bag drop and heading straight for the bar. Self medication is the only way I can step on a plane let alone actually take a flight. Being crammed in a flying tin can with hundreds of other people, thousands of feet in the sky is just a crazy concept and no matter how many air miles I rack up I still can’t get on board with it. Usually I deal with it by having a couple of glasses of wine to ease my nerves and help me relax. However, this isn’t always possible as last year we flew to Australia with Royal Brunei which is a dry airline. This coupled with being sat next to the most horrendous creature in the world (not Mr ESLT of course!) did not make for a great 27 hours!

However, once at my destination I completely forget about the worst few hours of my life that I have had to endure to get there and submerge myself in the local culture and cuisine. Whether I am in another city/country for 4 hours, 4 days or 4 weeks I put the nightmare of actually getting to my destination behind me, put my research into practice and explore to my heart’s content. I love snapping away on my camera, making memories and of course jotting things down which I can then transpose into blog posts. These are the days I dream of, the days that I have worked long and hard for, the days that I wish I could live everyday. I think being a part time traveller makes me very appreciative of the sights I see knowing I will only see them for a short period of time and maybe never again. As I am never in one place for a long time I never become blasé by what I see. Everyday is an adventure where the monotony of ‘normal’ life is well and truly forgotten.

Then I come home and crash back down to reality. I get jet lag, the post ‘holiday blues’ and of course an overflowing washing basket, because of course I over packed to start with. I now have to wash it ALL even if I’ve not worn it because it’s been compressed in my backpack with all my dirty clothes – the joy! Yes, I have the thousands of photographs to look back on but it’s not the same. The sounds, the smells, they are not there to accompany them. I get in a rut, but then something awesome happens! I get to do it all over again. I pick a place I really want to visit, I buy a guidebook or two, I do my google research until my fingers feel like they are going to fall off, then I book and pay for flights and accommodation (and so the cycle continues). I suppose as with everything in life even travelling has it’s ups and downs and I’ll continue to take the lows on the chin knowing that I get the amazing highs which makes travelling so worthwhile!