Why I Travel.

As I finish my last semester as a student and professor at San Diego State University, one of my last tasks is to grade a set of essays my freshmen have written. Their assignment was to read a chapter from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried titled “How to Tell a True War Story.” In this chapter, O’Brien delves into the deeper meaning of war, expanding into the truth about life, love, and death. He plays with the notions of telling and of memory, complicating the inclination to think of truth simplistically. After reading this story, my students were to craft their own “true” story on a topic of their choosing and use O’Brien’s strategies to unravel and reveal the deeper truth in their stories. I have encouraged them to write about a story that means something to them, a story they retell to themselves and perhaps others, trying to get it “right”-- to pin down its meaning and its truth. They have come up with some wonderful things to share.

So why, as the first entry to my Peruvian travel blog, have I chosen to begin by explaining a college assignment? Well, I believe any good story should always reach for the why, for the truth of things. And, I think this is an appropriate assignment to give to myself. Thus, here is my “true pack-up-and-go story” about why I am going to Peru. Perhaps only my students or those who’ve read O’Brien will pick up on my specific choice of strategies here, but my hope is that it will entertain and inform all of you.

This is true.

Wanderlust has been in my bones since my early 20s, or perhaps my teens, as I think back to trips I took—come rain or snow—during high school. In college, I remember listening to my male friends tell of exotic places and invigorating experiences upon returning from afar. Had I been a chameleon, I would have certainly turned envy green. How I wished to explore the world. I could literally feel it in my body, like hunger or passion. While some girls were secretly planning their far-off wedding day, I was secretly devising my far-off travel departure day.

But why? What is it about travel that intrigues me so? Some people say only those who are dissatisfied with their lives are compelled to travel. While this notion sometimes perplexes me, forcing me to ponder its truth, I firmly disagree. It isn’t about dissatisfaction. In truth, it is about rediscovering your joy and your passion in a new context. In truth, it is about experiencing things that will enable a deeper satisfaction with life. However, this satisfaction doesn’t come simply. It must be earned through travel. Those unhappy and challenging times—the ones that drop you off the edge of comfort and roadrunner chuckle as you coyote down the cliff—must be absorbed and inspected for their meaning. Sometimes you can only laugh and appreciate what they taught you long after they have happened.

I remember traveling in Europe about five years ago. I had decided at the last minute to jump on an overnight train from the South of France to Rome. I didn’t have a reservation, but assumed all would be fine if I just tucked away with my friends in first class. My first blurried sight (caused by a good bottle of Italian wine) of the grumpiest Italian train attendant ever caused me to quickly re-think my assumption. After spending a few hours getting kicked out of train car after train car, I ended up in a car that looked like the streets of downtown New York City. The dirty and downtrodden playing cards and craps or crouched down to sneak brief rest with one eye open. I was the only young girl amidst several leering men in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to go. There was nothing to do but trust that the rest of the night would pass without incident. Fear was in me. But it wasn’t in control. I found a place to close my eyes, waking once, alone except for an older man sitting upright, just staring at me. But then the train crept into Termini station and someone whispered “C’est Roma” (Perhaps in the early morning I look French?) And it was all good.

It’s funny how the scariest most uncomfortable travel stories often become the most memorable and meaningful to you. I love this one. I think of it now fondly, though I was certainly not fond of my circumstances at the time. A true travel story takes on new meaning when you have lived to tell it. The best travel stories are never about snapping that perfect shot of some building or some scene you see in magazines (just so you can say “I’ve been there”). The best travel stories happen in the dead of the night as you step over sleeping bums in search of a place to rest safely for a few hours. The best travel stories shake you out of your comfortable routine, push you into the moment, and make you feel alive (even if you also happen to be scared shitless).

This is why I travel. This is why I am going to Peru. I want to feel the embrace of each new moment. I want to feel that unfamiliar Andean air on my skin. I crave navigation of the complete unknown. This is why I am traveling out of my comfort zone. It is that experience on the Italian train that I want to live in a new context. Because it makes me feel alive. Because it tests me and makes me stronger.

But this is not the answer I commonly give to people who ask me why I am going to Peru. I say: I just finished my masters and landed a good writing job. It is going to be good for my career. It’s actually a better prospect than my job options in the States right now. It is going to be an asset for me to learn Spanish. It will be a nice change of events. It’s a good opportunity. I am young and have no obligations, so it’s a sensible time for such an endeavor. I love to travel, and this will allow me to do so while making money.

This is true. But, if you think that is all there is to it, then you don’t care much for the real truth. Any pack-up-and-go story always has deeper underlying motivations. My true motivations for going have little to do with these surface statements. (Though, yes, I am excited about my upcoming job and the opportunity to learn a language, thanks Koech!) My pack-up-and-go story is, in some ways, a reaction against these reasons.

Americans are particularly good at defining people by what they do and how they make their money. (My mom says the icebreaking question “What do you do?” is the human equivalent of the canine butt-sniffing welcome. I love it.) It seems we often value the dollar chase more than we do our families, our pets, our friends, and even our own happiness. I’ve seen the darker proliferations of this ideology play out in my family and in the lives of people around me. I want none of it for myself. Even if that means struggling against what society tells me I should want: A job I slave for, a “perfect” family I never see, a nice house where I barely sleep, you know the American Reality. While these things gain you acceptance by the many, I would rather live understood only by the few that share this rejection of a peculiarly American type of suffering.

This is not to say that I don’t love my country and my life here. I absolutely cherish them both. I find new reasons to be grateful abounding with each breath I take. I find new reasons to love our freedom-seeking American spirit when I see it in my friends, my family, in strangers, and in the man I hope will become our next president. (Don’t worry, I will side-step a political digression). I am thankful for the privileged life my family has given me. For the generous and infinitely loving energy my parents selflessly share with my two brothers and me. For the love, kindness, and laughter of my friends. These are the reasons it is hard for me to leave and the reasons I will return with excitement after my time in Peru is up. I am also thankful for the smiles I get from strangers and for the kindness I learn each day to become better at showing myself.

This is why I am traveling. Not because I want to get away from something, but because I want to develop an even broader view of the beauty and life this world has to offer. Because I want to expand my own compassion to include others. To gain a glimmer of understanding about people that are nothing like me. To recognize that, in fact, they are just like me. Because I want to connect deeper with life. This is why I travel.

There is another set of reasons I am traveling. These are hard for me to tell. These are the ones about the sadness that spawned my search for new experiences. This part is much harder to tell the truth about. In the last year, I experienced three significant losses that shook me to my core. I saw my typically bright and optimistic nature bleed out and the blackness of anxiety and self-doubt seep into the marrow of my being. The intensity of my suffering spun me towards a breaking point. But this breaking made openings for new life and new meanings, turning suffering into strength. Its beautiful how life works this way.

Because I love travel so much, I decided I should take this as an opportunity to make that passion come alive again. It would be a choosing of life for me (in response to the deaths I’d experienced in recent months). A choosing of myself above other concerns, worries, and expectations. I wanted to replace my self-pity for being one amidst twos (and threes) with gratitude for my path and an acceptance of what life has generously offered me. I wanted to look inside, ask myself what I really want out of life, and then go out and do it. This is why I am going to Peru.

In the end, a true travel story is never about travel. It is never about coming and it is never about going. It is about enjoying the journey. It is about this very moment. It is about life at its most real.