A year of travel

If you talked to me about traveling for the past 5 or 6 years (even before the pandemic started) I would often talk about how I didn’t really see the point. So often I would find myself in a new place and I would end up going through the same motions – find a cool cafe, grab a nice coffee, walk around a bit, find a bar, have some beers, and maybe find a place to dance. It felt like wherever I went I was having the same sort of experiences that I would have at home, and it left me feeling sort of empty – isn’t the whole point of travel to get uncomfortable by having new experiences¹?

My cynicism around travel reached a crescendo sometime in 2022 or 2023. I found myself going to different places in Europe and instead of coming back feeling energized or excited, I would feel sad and exhausted. I got to the point where I wondered if all the hassle was worth it (traveling entails a ton of hassle – from taking airplanes to cleaning Airbnbs to smelling foreign farts, it can be a lot!). This year, the shroud of cynicism has slowly been lifting and I’ve started to enjoy traveling again. A combination of factors, be it traveling with close friends, some sort of emotional connection to the place I’m visiting or just getting out of my comfort zone have contributed to my renewed excitement for going on new adventures.

In January I went to the UAE for a friend’s wedding. We spent most of our time in Dubai, but a friend and I went to Abu Dhabi for a few days to explore some of our old haunts. I wrote about this earlier this year, but this trip was invigorating; life-affirming even. I have spent a long time learning how to speak some Hindi, and I feel like I got to properly exercise this muscle on the Creek in Dubai. I was amongst a ton of fellow HSL (Hindi as a second language) folks, and I felt confident in a way that I rarely feel when talking to native speakers. I felt the same way I do when I boop-bop around Mumbai on my own – like my ability to speak some Hindi was allowing me to communicate more effectively with locals, and moreover that I was able to connect with people in a deeper-than-superficial manner. It felt like all that work that I had invested in learning the language was actually worth it.

In March I went (back) to India. I spent a couple of days in Mumbai, and I was reminded why I love the city (later on we spent a few days in Goa, which was also lovely!). Mumbai is not a tourist-friendly place. In fact, I would say that Mumbai is actively antagonistic towards foreign tourists. It is chaotic and messy on an epic scale. It is also fantastically beautiful, cosmopolitan, and delicious. When I went in March I really got the chance to put my Hindi skills to the test. I spent a few days galavanting around lower Mumbai with a US American friend, and I sort of played the role of tour guide. I chatted with tons of people, negotiated, and even yelled at a few auto-rickshaw drivers. Armed with this ability to somewhat effectively communicate, I felt more agency than I’ve ever felt there. This only intensified my fascination with the place. Mumbai is delightfully complex, and this complexity only deepens the more you discover about the place. My desire to communicate with people in Mumbai and thus attempt to make some sense of all the beauty and chaos around me is my connection to the city.

In July I went to Thessaloniki in Greece. I was traveling with my partner for the first time. We had a lovely time, and they introduced me to the idea of spending the whole day sitting on the beach. I have never had a vacation like this before, and it was frankly amazing. For two days in a row, we found some nice lounge chairs near the water and spent the whole day just sitting and doing absolutely nothing of consequence. We read books, chatted, had some beers, and swam in the water. Sometimes I would just sit there looking at the beautiful Aegean Sea. With no plans and nothing to do, my mind unclenched. Instead of going crazy with boredom, I actually found myself relaxing, in a very profound way. The other bit that was cool about Thessaloniki was all the old stuff. Generally speaking it’s hard for me to get excited about seeing old buildings because I don’t have any particular connection to the history. Notre Dame in Paris? Beautiful and very cool, but it doesn’t really tug at my heartstrings. I don’t have any context for it; and if I’m being honest I’m not particularly curious about the context. Thessaloniki’s Hagia Sofia, however? Oh man did that get me excited. I was practically jumping up and down! I think this has to do with my dad. I have fond memories of him cracking open this ancient art history textbook (made before the advent of digital printing, he’d always point out) to show me all these cool Byzantine churches. The guy was giddy telling me about all the mosaics contained within. I think his random passion for Byzantine era churches rubbed off on me; I snapped tons of photos, eager to show him that I saw one of the churches from that textbook in real life!

In September/October I went to Japan with two of my closest friends. We spent ten or eleven days exploring Tokyo, Nagoya and Kyoto. One of my friends is from Japan, and he was able to help communicate with people and navigate us around. We saw lots of temples and shrines, drank a lot (not really my thing these days) and ate. We ate so much incredible food. Japan feels pretty inaccessible to foreign tourists. Mumbai is inaccessible because it’s difficult to get around town, its chaotic, and it can be difficult to figure out if people are trying to scam you. That said, most people speak some degree of English, so communication is possible. Moreover, most signs have both Marathi/Hindi and English on them, so it’s easy to understand what stores are selling, or what’s happening with a menu. In Japan, we encountered far fewer people who spoke English, and there was very little Latin-alphabet text present when moving around. It feels like a place that is optimized for getting around in Japanese (which makes sense!), with very little attention paid to what a non-Japanese speaking traveler’s experience might be. To be clear, I don’t have any problem with this. I don’t feel that any place has an obligation to cater to tourists. If I’m being honest with myself (and I feel a little embarrassed to admit this) I sort of like it when places don’t cater to foreign tourists. It heightens my sense that I’m somewhere different from where I’m coming from. It also increases the chances that there won’t be a ton of other tourists around. Again, I don’t necessarily have any problem with being around other tourists, it’s just a little weird when I encounter a family from Iowa City walking around Kyoto. Japan’s inaccessibility made it exciting for me. Going to the convenience store felt like an adventure, not just because of all the incredible food and drink but because it meant interacting with a person who didn’t speak English or trying to navigate some Point of Sale system that was completely inscrutable if you don’t speak Japanese. More than anything, the thing that made traveling to Japan exciting was doing it with two of my closest friends in the whole world. Waking up a little hungover and knowing that I don’t have to despair because I would get to spend the day hanging with two of my best buds? I haven’t experienced that since I was in university.

I’m excited to do more traveling in 2025. Hopefully I’ll go to Rwanda to visit one of my friends from university. Maybe I’ll go to Senegal, Mexico or Brazil. Maybe I’ll make my way back to India.