As a child I was strolling up and down our street and visited all our neighbors. Looking back I was never further away than 2 or 3 houses. As a preschooler that was my big, wide world.
Little steps towards wanderlust
The Baltic Sea
Later I was traveling a little futher. During the summer holidays we went to the Baltic Sea. I almost couldn’t believe it. Water as far as I could see. The summer went by on white beaches. We built sand castles and swam in the sea until my lips turned blue and my mom wouldn’t let me go back into the water.
And very important: In Bansin on the Island Usedom they had the best soft serve in the world! The window that they sold it from is still there today. The ice cream is gone.
And my small world expanded.
My first time abroad – Turkey
I took my first trip to another country when I was 12. Greece was booked out so we decided to go to Turkey instead.
A small hotel in Alanya separated from the beach by a street, back in the day when everyone driving by felt the need to honk every 30 seconds. After 2 weeks none of us noticed that anymore. We enjoyed the beach, the pool, the nice people, the sunshine and food so much that everything else didn’t matter. That was in 1993.
Since then I went to Turkey about 15 times. I honestly lost count. Of course the hotels got better over the years and a little bit of luxury can never hurt. Especially on a vacation. When you are traveling a lot and it becomes a lifestyle to be on the road, that may not be as important anymore and probably is affordable by the least amount of people. But if you only get to leave the country for 2 or 3 weeks a year, you should give yourself that little treat.
A lot of nice people in the country between the Black and the Mediterranean Sea became dear friends and for a long time at heart Turkey was my second home. I the meantime I moved to the United States. My third home… Or does the term “home” dissolve as a traveler? I am thinking about this for a while now. I will let you know, when I found an answer.
Now I want to know from you:
How did your wanderlust begin?
Are you also tortured by the desire to travel? Where did your first trip take you? Do you have a second home?
Where do they have the best soft serve? ;)
Leave me a comment! I’m looking forward to your answers!
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4 comments
I was working a dull job as a teenager, hiring videos to people that I didn’t have anything in common with. I never watch TV – there are too many other things to do in life. To pass the time in the video shop I would look over an old travel book with black and white photos that an adventurous cousin had given me. And I would dream…
The first chapter was about Angkor Wat in Cambodia. That was it – I had to go. So I saved and worked every spare minute to get on the road and once I began travelling I couldn’t stop. I made it to Angkor Wat in the end and it didn’t disappoint. I was lucky enough to be amongst the first to go there when Cambodia began to open up in the mid 1990s so there were no hotels or tourist hubbub – just me and a friend and on a motorbike exploring it. We didn’t see anyone else until we stumbled across a royal ceremony there and became a part of that. There have been many more memorable travel events before and since then of course. But the place that inspired me remains the most important travel experience I have had.
Lovely story and photos. For me, it was almost “virtual travel” long before there was a web. I got really into shortwave radio listening in my pre-teen and early teen years. Hearing the stories of life in other countries, and then writing them with reception reports, getting colorful “QSL Cards” (report verification postcards) back from places in Asia, South America, and Europe on either side of the “Iron Curtain”. I don’t know what my small-town Massachusetts, USA post office carrier thought about all the mail from Moscow, Havana, Sofia, Prague, East Berlin, “Red China”, along with that from the BBC, Deutche Welle in West Germany, RAI Italy, stations in Ecuador… but it gave me a drive go get out and see the world someday. And made the concept of actually living in a country other than my home country, at least a possibility.
Sure, there was propaganda – heck, that’s why all these countries spent so much money on International SWBC (Shortwave Broadcasting). But I was a pretty smart kid, I think. Enough to know, that even if USA wasn’t quite as wonderful as my schools were telling me (and Voice of America / Radio Free Europe was telling Russia), that life in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries probably was neither quite as rosy as their broadcasts might claim, but not nearly as “horrible” as “ours” did. Some early training on multiple perspectives and cultural relativism
This was even more important to me, to explore the world virtually, because my family didn’t do any significant travel. Foreign travel was a few days in nearby parts of Canada, and no further. Even most of USA was outside our family preference and budget. But I’d “seen” and heard more of foreign lands than many of my schoolmates.
Many years later, I was able to start my traveling, and some years after that, to choose to live in another country where I now am, Uruguay. But the “bug” for it – started back “on the air”.
Mark, that is a beautiful and inspiring story! Originally I am from East Germany and I am lucky that I never actually had to experience the “No, you can’t go there!” part of life there since the Berlin Wall came down when I was 8 years old. I cannot imagine to be locked down in my own country, like my parents were when they were younger.
It’s so nice to hear about someone who overcame the reason why he could not yet travel and still was able to make journeys of another kind.
Thank you for sharing!
I love these photos, gorgeous. I’ve definitely got the bug to travel, but I need to give myself that final push, financially too to actually do it. I think it comes from studying geography and having this desire to explore the world because you’re a part of it and see some of the places I’ve been studying about in the flesh. Great post, and I love your blog! – Tasha xxx