What's The Point in Roaming the World?

The Best Part of Traveling

One of the best parts of traveling is the food. Sometimes, it takes me a long time to decide on just the right morsel to buy. Other times, I buy a whole bag and try them all. That is what traveling is like: looking for each possible choice and then deciding whether to try one small one or an entire smorgasbord of countries all at once.

There’s No One Size Traveling Pants

Over the past year of traveling and writing, I've learned that there are as many ways of traveling as there are clothes to wear. Like me, everyone has an opinion and puts on their traveling pants, and opinions, one leg at a time. Yet after a year of exploring, while it is interesting to learn how others travel, for the most part, it has not impacted how I see the world or how I plan to travel going forward. I’ve absorbed a suggestion here and there, but the warnings, cautions, and predictions blow on by. They can do their thing, I’ll do mine.

Am I escaping? Well, to some extent, yes. Sometimes I need a break. Yes, the United States has issues, and people want to talk about those. Yes, Türkiye has problems, and Americans want my opinion. I’m not running from either country to escape the situation. I live in two places. I love them both, but if you’ve read my posts, you know where my heart lies.

It’s Now or Never

But there’s also a vast world, and I need to see it. I have a ticking clock in my head. Reaching this age made me realize that my list is growing. The world is rapidly changing, and I need to move faster. Bhutan is on my travel list, and that country is on the restricted visa list for the United States. 1 I have no idea how that country will react to Americans, and I’m concerned. As Brent Hartinger and Michael Jensen (Brent and Michael Are Going Places) have reminded us, traveling might be unpredictable.2 A second passport has now possibly proved its value. We’ll see.

I’m addicted to travel partly because of the ferries I fell in love with in Istanbul. Türkiye is a beautiful country, filled with people who have been exceptionally pleasant and welcoming to me for over thirty years. My goal is to travel the world to see if the people in other countries are the same. So far, they are. I think master traveler and world walker, Chris Arnade, might agree with me.

Sometimes You’re Not Sure You Fit

There are some things about being a traveler and a resident of two different countries and cultures, all highlighted by Gregory Garretson’s “Big Tent” series about being a good immigrant, decent traveler, and human being. I won’t reiterate each point here, but look at his list of ten points. I think I’ve done well on the Turkish side of things, but failed miserably on the Miami side. Backwards, isn’t it? It should be easy for me to assimilate into the Miami culture. It’s in the U. S., right?

Well, geographically, yes. Culturally, however, Miami, as I’ve indicated before, is its own country. There are so many immigrants in this South Florida city that I feel I reside outside the United States. There are days I believe that a line should be drawn somewhere north of Miami, but south of Fort Lauderdale, breaking the entire end of Florida into a separate country—or two—one for Miami-Dade and the other for all of Monroe County and the Florida Keys. They need their own set of tariffs, passports, and rules.3 Squeezing either of these locations to be part of the old-white-man Anglo United States is a ridiculous idea. There are other parts of our country like this, I’m sure. This is just the one I’m consistently exposed to.

I’m not assimilating well, even though I like it here. Once I speak enough Turkish to communicate, make jokes, and talk politics at family dinners4, it will be time to drown myself in Spanish. There are many areas here where people do not speak English, and if you’re looking for some of the best local food—those morsels we spoke of up top here—Spanish is needed. Learning the language is the first thing anyone must do to assimilate into a new neighborhood properly. I’ve taken an inordinate amount of time to learn Turkish and Spanish, and I am still a bit lost, so I know.

So Why Keep Traveling?

I already live in two completely different cultures, so why keep going? Travel is learning. I can continue my education without paying excessive tuition to a U.S. university. It teaches me more about myself than others; I need that growth. In my opinion, Americans have a very restricted view of the world. I want to expand my view as much as possible.

What Have I Learned This Year?

So, looking back at my posts, what have I learned from my travels over the past year? Here’s my list of ten things I learned over the past year.

1. Beautiful places are everywhere; some cannot be captured with a camera. To experience them, you need to sit quietly and absorb. Even though I took photos in Dalyan, Türkiye, capturing the beauty of the marsh, the water, and the ruins with a camera was superficial. A picture can't appropriately capture the feeling of camaraderie and friendship. Resting in my kayak and simply absorbing the history was what I needed to do.
2. Not every tourist vendor is trying to cheat you. I’ve met some of the nicest people who sat with me and talked, patiently answering my questions about their wares, families, daily lives, and cultural distinctions. I bought nothing, but we both enjoyed each other’s company.
3. Sometimes, you outgrow a place. It was your “place to be” for years until one day, it wasn’t, and you moved on. That’s okay. People grow and change. You can, too.
4. Some places have too many visitors, such as Barcelona, and those cities should do a better job of telling us tourists to stay away, rather than waiting for their citizens to blast us with water guns. And maybe we need to do a better job of finding other cities to visit in the first place. I am even more determined to visit Venice after reading Nicole Ziza Bauer’s post. Yet I won’t. There are too many people, and until I can talk with a resident about how to visit without causing further damage or determine a better way, I will have to rely on articles like this.
5. I learned France does have some of the best cheese in the world.
6. The countryside of Ireland is spectacular. And three days is a ridiculous amount of time to explore it. I believe that three days is a ridiculous amount of time to explore any location, for that matter.
7. Clarie’s thoughts from Out of Office Adventures on “soft travel” are spot on. After Ireland, rushing with a limited amount of time made me change how I travel in that respect. While I may have to travel quickly with my husband (this is how he does it), enjoying a new location takes time.
8. Your perceptions of a location are biased depending on what information you learned years ago and have never updated. I never expected to like Bogatá, Colombia as much as I did. I grew up during the time of cartels and guns, and that’s what was still in my head when I visited.
9. Everyone has an impression of how a location looks, acts, and feels to them. When you see it, it will be different. Whether it is the stunning Instagram photo you learned had to be photoshopped, the food at a particular restaurant that was a little off, or that top-of-the-line hotel recommended by a friend that was so bad you had to check out, be flexible. And realize that no one sees things exactly as anyone else does.
10. Most of all, I discovered my home this year, the one of my heart and soul. That’s big for me, as I have been on the move all my life.

But I’m Not Done. Where Should I Go Next?

Seriously, if there was one place in the world you wanted to see before you died, where would it be?

Tell me in the comments, email me, or track me down at the Raccoon coffee shop. I want to know.