Written in 2018 in Lingang, Shanghai, China

Back in the day when I first started backpacking or went overseas, people seemed to think that traveling was just for those who finish university and don’t quite know what to do with themselves. There’s always that cliché scenario of the recent graduate who’s temping in an office to save for their year abroad and announces to their team, “I’m taking a gap year.” With the reply from their co-workers, “if only I was your age again, well… well, make the most of it before you get a mortgage and start having kids.” Then there’s the other jealous types who want to go but just don’t quite have it in them, “ Oh so what are you going to do when you get back? Aren’t you going to miss everyone, and what about your car?” If you are in this situation and ever have to listen to this, just ignore all the comments and with all the power you can muster just go, go and do it. And by the way, travel is definitely not just a month or a year to escape the real world, it is not always a dream either, and it is certainly not only for university graduates who don’t know what to do with themselves.

Was I always interested in travel? Did I daydream about all the places I wanted to go to? The answer to both these questions is no. When I was about 20, I was at Art school in London at the time, and my dream was to stay there and do something creative. I was trying my best, by interning at some galleries, spending my weekends working at Jaeger down Regent Street, and surrounded by people that could swing out pretentious slang from their mouths in 20 seconds flat. On the surface, it sounded great but at the time it caused me to have a crazy anxiety, and I always felt inferior to these people and that I wasn’t (the over-used word at art school) “interesting” enough. So one day back at home, my brother started raving about a company called ‘Trek America,’ and talking excitedly about a trip where he got into a van with a bunch of people at New Jersey and traveled all around the States. For some reason a little ping went off in my head, ‘travel travel,’ and I wondered why I had never really thought about it much before. Maybe it was because my university life wasn’t all that, or maybe I just wanted to escape. Anyhow when my brother eventually went, I loved reading his very animated blog, where he posted about all his adventures from hanging out with the Navajo Indians in Monument Valley to partying on roof top bars in Chicago. I just knew that I was going, yes, I was going to travel somewhere and anywhere!

Finishing university or art school is hard. Especially art school, which is like being trapped inside a bubble, especially in London, it’s like no-where else in the world exists. So, after trying to be some kind of creative person in London, being very unhappy and failing terribly, I somehow feel I had to make this up by doing or going somewhere else. And now, I can say, I am so glad that my university degree wasn’t all that, because I never would have done everything that followed in my future life. Anyway, going away on my own for my first travel trip I can strangely say that I was not scared, I was absolutely buzzing with excitement. I was probably more scared to stay at home and sit temping in an office, cutting my split ends and contemplating about whether I should send out a job application or not.

At the time, I approached the trip with so much enthusiasm and zest for life that I had an incredible time. The first time I went away, I did exactly the same trip as my brother Trek America as it had been something on my mind for years, so I have him to thank! At the time, I felt like the trip was life changing, I summoned up the courage to put myself in a van with random strangers and travel to beautiful, ugly and interesting places all over America. It was mesmerizing, I had the time of my life, I saw golden sunrises and sunsets over the Grand Canyon and many other world wonders, slept in a tents while a zillion fire-flies buzzed around, made some of the strongest bonds and friendship with people I had in a long time and even had a travel romance. On the trip, reality seemed so far away, I was sat drinking around bonfires behind bars and listening to locals talking about how many snakes they put a fork in down the farm, or making new friends in Haight, High Ashbury, San Francisco while tasting vegan food and listening to the hum of Jazz Music. I was quite literally high on life. And it made me wonder, why had I had not been high on life before?

On the plane ride home, I was so positive and happy and decided that the world was a glorious place. I would go home, get a job, save money and then go again. Returning from the trip, I had so much energy, I felt like the world was my oyster, I could do anything. For weeks, my travel friends and I constantly posted photo’s on Facebook and made hundreds of comments that it was probably enough to drive anyone insane. Eventually I got a job, it was a crap job working in an office, but all I had in my head was, “I want to travel, travel, who cares about a career?” I had to work in the job for about 8 months to save, at the beginning I was super happy and positive, but then that started to wear off once I realized that no one really cared about my wonderful experiences, and the fact that I had slept in a mud hut in Monument Valley or partied in Las Vegas. I was sat at a desk, listening to dreary customers moan on the phone. And all anyone really wanted to do at work was complain about their mortgages or just harp on and on about terrible petty dull things. Then it started to dawn on me, that is life, life is boring and dull sometimes. And that was enough to get me on a plane and escape again without a second thought.

My second trip was more or less the same as the last one. I travelled to Australia and South-East Asia, spending my days carrying a stinky backpack around, one day I was sky-diving on a beach in Melbourne the next to partying it up with my new hostel friends in Sydney in some electro club, to falling asleep on a long train ride in from Bang-Kok. Life was exactly how it should be for a 20 something with a backpack, and for me anyway.

I did settle down a little bit after my second trip, even though in the beginning, I desperately didn’t want to come home back to reality. I told my parents that I wanted to do TEFL and live abroad for a while, but eventually they persuaded me that if I really wanted to teach, I should come home and do a PGCE and then go and do it. And so that’s what I did, I came home, became a teacher, and realized that I can still have a career and travel. Now fast-forwarding to the moment I work at an International School in China and I’m really enjoying life. The travel itch has never really stopped and at every given opportunity during school holidays I have travelled. But travel actually pointed me in the right direction, it made me realize that I want to work with children and it gave me more ideas to do with my other passion- Art, and I even spent a good two years while teaching trying to write a children’s book about my travel adventures, which I must try and do something about!

So is travel a form of an escape? It can be a form of escape, but it’s also a lot of other things. Travel is an education, it has matured me far more than any other experience, and has given me the confidence to do things that I quite possibly would have never tried, or even thought about at home. It also makes me incredibly happy to see and experience how other people live and join in with their culture. The little simple things, like walking through a wet market in the morning or trying to order dinner in the few words of Chinese that I know.

Recently I’ve realized that many people don’t actually have the courage to travel or don’t have the opportunity, or maybe other people are simply not that bothered with it and perfectly happy with their life at home. I don’t regret any of my experiences overseas as both a traveler and an expat, and I feel privileged to have been able have seen so many places on this planet, and yes although I’m more settled now, I think the itch will always be there.

To me, to move overseas and to immerse my myself in a different culture has been good for my soul. Before I moved to China, everyone said, “you’re brave,” but to me, I’m just trying it out and getting an experience, maybe from the fear of not living an interesting life aswell. And going back to the stereotype that traveling is only for those who have just finished university. Where I currently work in China, I have met so many people in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s who are out here working, I’m actually usually one of the youngest people in my 30’s. For example, the other day I spoke to one of my work colleagues from America, he said, “traveling and working here with my family is no big deal, we’ve come here and if we like it we stay, if not, we can always go home.” And he really is right, so who cares if it’s an escape or not, everyone eventually settles down somewhere in the world, just because it’s not where you grew up it doesn’t mean that you’re escaping. Some people carry on traveling, some people buy a ticket back home and some people settle in a new country. Travel is not about escaping, it’s simply realizing what make you happy, but it’s also not a dream, because moving overseas anywhere is going to test you a lot, so get ready to feel the fear!