Some deep thoughts and quotes about travelling
Sometimes, a famous quote so perfectly encapsulates a feeling that there seems little point trying to articulate it differently. When C bought me my travel diary for my 21st, she wrote a quote on the first page.
Henry Miller – “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
I only truly understood that quote after my first few days of moving around New Zealand. Long bus journeys bring lots of time for reflection, especially when you have an old school iPod nano with a very short battery life. The country’s beautiful landscapes invoke feelings of insignificance as you pass nothing but earth and sky, and as I sped around the south island, the scenes of natural wonder beyond the window provoked me to question what I wanted out of life.
While I was hurtling towards Nelson with my ears full of MGMT, which brought memories back of summers long gone, I planned my post-uni life. Disregarding graduate schemes, which felt like a foreign concept while I was travelling, I compiled a country hit-list for the next 5 years. It makes me anxious when I think about how huge the world is and how little time there is to see it all, as I’ve said before here.
Cesare Pavese – “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.
You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”
I decided, with that sense of awakening that can only happen when we’re away from our comfort zone, that I’d rather be rich in experiences than in dollar dollar bills. Who cares about driving around your hometown in a Porsche like a pr*ck when you can ride around Asia in a tuk tuk like a boss?
St. Augustine – ‘The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.’
I found a website where you can create your own travel map of all the countries you have visited, and it told me I’ve visited 7% of the world. I’ve got some ground to cover!
So, where next, after this amazing trip around New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia? During those sun-baked, incredible three months, C and I promised each other that if, when we got back to uni, we found flights in our price range, we would go to New York. Today, we booked our tickets.
I’m going to New York City!
I may not be able to pay my rent, but this will be so worth it.
Mark Twain – “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain also said,
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
C and I survived and now we’re going to America!
Keep reading to find out how five days in the city that never sleeps turned into living in a basement in Queens for three months. It’s a tumultuous ride full of sky-scraping adventures and hungover subway rides.
Update: After New York, I worked in England for a year and then experienced the expat life in Dubai.
You can see all my updates on Facebook, follow me on twitter and instagram and sign up for my email newsletter.