"to roam the roads of lands remote.."

"..to travel is to live".

I was asked before by a friend what it is about travelling that I love so much. A simple question to answer, I thought, given that travelling is a passion of mine, and I prepared to launch into a euphoric eulogy that would aptly convey this to her –

- but then I stopped. The word that had lined up along my tongue lingered there, lacklustre. Everything was so horribly cliché; yes, I love discovering new places, and yes, I believe travel opens your eyes and your mind and – yaawn. Who hasn’t heard that before?

I found myself struggling. I couldn't satisfactorily put into words why, for me, there is no happier feeling than watching the sun sink over a novel horizon. Why I spend a ridiculous amount of time (all of those afternoons sitting idly in the corner during OPD clinic..) planning where I'll spend my next three summers, what European city I want to visit next, where I want to live for a year when I graduate. Why the first word I associate with “lonely” is “planet”.  

It’s an individual thing, discovering a love for travelling, but at the end of the day, many of our reasons for enjoying it overlap – and that’s why these clichés develop. If I was to answer her now, having mulled it over in the interim, I might tell her that for me, it’s the ineffable feeling of freedom. Or I might borrow those simple yet succinct words which resonate with me so strongly – to travel is to live.

I used to think I'd done a lot of travelling - or a fair bit, at least, given my age. I thought I'd seen plenty of this pleasurable planet of ours. Well on my way to becoming a woman of the world; globe-trotting glory within my grasp - and then my boyfriend gave me a present of a Scratch Map. For those of you not familiar with the concept, a Scratch Map is a map of the world with the countries covered in gold foil, and with the aid of a coin, you scratch off the countries that you've visited.

I expected mine to be a kaleidoscope of my global conquerings..

Hmm. Not quite. Not counting countries I’ve stopped over in, and only counting states in Canada and the US (I felt it was cheating to do otherwise), there is an immense amount of gold left. If only I’d been to Russia..

So though I'm not quite the jet-setter I thought I was, I'm not Boeing to let this get me down. ;) I’m hoping to do a weekly travel post here (although let’s be honest, if it’s fortnightly I’ll be doing well) on some of my favourite places that I’ve been – and hopefully, over the next while, I might get to scratch off somewhere new and tell you guys about it!

I looked at my Scratch Map earlier and thought how this was a rare occasion where the more gold that I have, the worse that I’m doing. Not a great attitude, though, is it. Pessimism was never my cup of tea. 

So I’m going to take a different perspective; the more gold that I have, the more that still awaits me. :)