Traveler's Check

Travel is defined as a movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. Many travel for recreation, tourism or vacationing. It begins the moment you lock the door to your home and get dropped at the airport. You brave it through the transit and arrive at your destination. Instantly you join the global avid league of tourists. By this time you would have spent weeks researching your chosen destination.   There you stand armed with maps and guidebooks hailing a taxi from your hotel lobby.  You appear like a typical tourist with the latest digital camera slung around your neck and a pouch containing the essentials around your waist. You take pride in your efficiency of having marked out an itinerary covering all tourist destinations. Your taxi driver is a professional who has predetermined that 20 minutes is more than enough for you to take in the beauty or awe of that classic monument or landmark. It gives you enough time to stand there and read out a brief description of the tourist attraction under focus, to your companions, and ask another fellow tourist to take a quick picture of yourself standing next to the attraction. Of course if the fellow tourist is equally high on “touristy spirit”, he will allow you to indulge in some creative yet clichéd poses such as the angled pose next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. No doubt it will make an amazing profile picture for your facebook and twitter accounts. You sail through your tourist stops having filled your camera with pictures of the attraction occasionally capturing a cultural street show. You pose with the star of the show who dressed in his royal flamboyant costume seems to represent the entire historical heritage of a civilization. Of course in midst of this, you do take the time out to indulge in some delicacies. You rejoice at the sight of the nearest Burger King. Later at night, you arrive back to your hotel, exhausted but pleased with having explored the foreign land exactly the way the guide book outlined. You have been a successful tourist.   But is this what you spent all your savings on? It seems like that traveling all the way to the new destination and following the same systematic routine is a far cry from the relaxation you had sought. I mean what’s the point of going abroad if you’re just another tourist carted away around in taxis and buses surrounded by other sweaty and uptight tourists. You spend so much time standing in queues for taxis, admission tickets, attractions, burger king etc. that you forgot the real essence of travel.   Travel is meant to allow us to reinvent ourselves over and over again. It gives us an opportunity to open our eyes and hearts to a new place and embrace it for all its glory. Every destination that you visit is like a Pandora box full of adventure and mystique. You just have to learn to travel with your eyes and mind open. You have to go beyond the tourist in you and embrace the inner traveler. Once you take in a new destination as your new home, be it temporary, only then will you let your inner self loose and allow the destination to change you from the person you were when you left home.   True we are all tourists. Or at least we start out that way on any journey. We take tours to see all the sites but yet we miss the sounds. We see the streets yet we don’t notice the lights. We buy souvenirs yet we don’t share the bonds.  How is this travel adventurous or even authentic if you don’t learn anything about the culture and heritage of the new destination. Do you really achieve anything productive from your travel other than albums full of self portraits and perhaps a t-shirt confirming your presence at the travel destination. I know some of you may be thinking, who am I to judge. A travel experience in an unknown place is a very subjective experience defined by each individual in a way he deems right. I just wish to help you realize that the goal of traveling is to learn about the world and about yourself. It’s about being open and accepting new cultures and the different ways of living. It’s about moving away from being a tourist and enjoying the mystique of being a traveler. Travel and be the person who changes the location and sees it as a second home.   As a traveler, go beyond the surface of a destination and seek out bondage with the local culture. Go deeper and explore the culture, the people, the traditions, the food, the lifestyles and inner workings of a new place. A traveler gets involved. When traveling through an ancient trade route city, you follow the guide book along the ancient bazaars but then pack the book into your back pack and let yourself get lost in the maze of intertwined narrow walk ways paved with street vendors calling out to you to smell the exotic scents. Stand in one corner, close your eyes and transform yourself back in time and watch the ancient bazaar come alive once again and you will see the ancient merchants with their caravans lining the same narrow walk ways. You continue walking and you stumble across a tiny door. It doesn’t seem to be marked in any way. Being the traveler you are, curiosity gets the better of you and you walk in.  You can’t believe your eyes as you seem to have found an ancient inn and barracks. It couldn’t get any better than this. You saw history come to life as you let yourself reach out deeper   Your travels can take to you diverse destinations. Some beckoning you with rich culture and heritage, while some with their breath taking natural beauty. You followed the advice of your co-workers and booked a trip to Switzerland. As always, you sit in the plane on route reading up the guide book. It outlines the cities of interest. You stand at the bus ticket counter hoping to purchase tickets for a tour. You catch a local watching you. You get a bit jumpy but then you realize interacting with him might enable you to obtain special information. You strike up a conversation and soon you two appear as old chaps from school. You break down the barrier. He welcomes you and is able to direct you to a better option. Soon you have a 4 day travel pass with access to bus, train and ferries across the country. You are able to avoid crowded tours and embark on a life changing journey across the magnificent country taking in splendid views, strolling across the lake, eating croissant by the side of Mount Blanc. All because you embraced the spirit of a traveler and let yourself get involved.   True, the above accounts may be a few pages of my personal travel diaries. I started out as a tourist. Somewhere along the way, I broke away and saw travel as a way to understand the world that we all live in together. I saw each destination as a source of infinite possibilities and endless stories. No matter where you go, remember to go beyond the surface and never accept the visit as an end in itself. Every destination becomes the next departure, every culture a new maze, every sunrise a new beginning. Travel to mix with locals, eat from street stalls, ride around in those local three wheelers. Encourage your own curiosity. Develop a sense of belonging to every destination you visit. Leave with a longing to return with lasting memories and stories. In the end, come as a tourist but leave as a traveler.