The Grand Adventure

This is a piece I wrote for Long Beach Magazine. It was published in the January 2010 issue.

A few years back, sitting in the kitchen of a beautiful guest house just outside of Christchurch, New Zealand, I came face to face with some surprising truths about myself.  My husband and I were six days into a three-week visit, and we had fallen in love with the country. Sure, we’d spent the first two days highly suspicious of the extreme kindness we found everywhere, but once our suspicion wore off, we were able to properly focus on the gorgeous sights, rich culture and genuine hospitality that surrounded us.

I pride myself on being a good traveler. My father worked for the airlines when I was growing up, and trips were plentiful. We rode standby most of the time, which meant arriving at LAX knowing that we might not be actually leaving for several hours; sometimes we even had to go back home and try again the next day. No big deal. My parents taught my brother and me to see travel (life, really) as a grand adventure: things may not go the way you’d imagined, and that’s okay. I have many fond memories of the four of us running from terminal to terminal at top speed, laughing uncontrollably; of getting lost while walking around London and being warned by a local that continuing on that street would surely lead to our getting shot (oops); of having to track down, all over Madrid, a certain brand of popsicle my younger brother quickly became attached to; of sneaking contraband food into our hotel room in Rome for the sake of saving a few lire. Grand adventure, indeed.

But it had been years since I’d done any real traveling, and what is exciting as a child can be challenging as an adult. The majority of our trip to New Zealand consisted of a self-guided driving tour, made ever-so-slightly terrifying by the drive-on-the-left, sit-on-the-right driving practices. We spent many long hours on the road, and slept in a new place every other night; sometimes every night.

A journal entry from that trip reads: It’s been not quite a week and we’ve seen so much, so many different landscapes and people and places, sounds and smells. Bit overwhelming, really, at this stage. Constant traveling can be hard work, especially for two people who hold [the concept of] Home at such a high premium… I told R. when we started the journey (or maybe before) that traveling to other countries makes you really take stock of who and what you are; your shortcomings, strengths, boundaries, comfort levels. You grow so much, I told him. My own boundaries have become all too evident, and they are hard to face…I need the upper hand in every situation more than I am comfortable admitting. I am impatient, and short-fused. I blame.  …Am exhausted from so many days of driving, taking in scenery and information, figuring out directions, meeting new people, guessing at etiquette, etc.

It was surprising to find that, in concert with the thrill of experiencing a new country I’d wanted very much to visit, one I found delightful at every turn, I was also experiencing a brand-new level of discomfort. I hadn’t realized until then how very pronounced my reliance is on a certain order and certain types of knowledge. Being in a new place day after day means that you never know where your next meal is coming from. It means repeatedly having to track down the restroom. And, if you’re driving, it means not really knowing where you’re going, even though you have directions and lodging and all of that. And if you’re traveling with a partner, you can also expect tensions to crop up, multiply, cause disturbances—particularly on long trips, particularly in a different country.  All of which can put a strain on things.

To what extent do we define ourselves by our arbitrary situations and conveniences? The answer, for me, was eye-opening. Without those things, evidently, I am less patient, less kind, less generous (and that’s a generous description, to be sure!).  But in the uncomfortable examination of those ideas, I was able to move past them. I did my best to become an observer of my gut reactions, and to avoid being led by them. That in itself went a long way toward easing the interpersonal tensions inevitable on a long trip; but it also allowed me to be more patient with myself. And then a funny thing happened. As I got more comfortable with the idea that I was really not as unflappable a traveler as I’d thought, I also got more comfortable with not being entirely comfortable—and that, in turn, helped me to give up the struggle and just enjoy myself, regardless of the situation.

Lessons learned on the road translate well to all other aspects of life. On the road, we are perhaps our truest selves. We can’t hide behind our schedules, our laundry, our social commitments while we’re in motion. In our daily lives we’ve worked to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible, thus removing an entire set of circumstances that test our mettle. And so, often, our truest selves are different from our daily selves. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not. Many people never take that test. But for the bold, travel is a test like no other, and the benefits can be life-changing. Of that much, I’m certain.