The Magic of Travel

As a young girl, around seven or eight years old, my grandparents took my brother and I to Niagara Falls from our small town in the Eastern side of Ontario, Canada. It’s not as though I’d never left home but it was the first time I ever travelled anywhere specifically as a tourist.  The week leading up to the trip I floated on cloud nine, writing my packing lists and preparing my suitcase with precision.

My grandparents turned the backseat of the car into a fort with pillows, blankets and toys as we sloshed around without seatbelts, as one did in the 80s, barrelling down the 401 highway through Toronto.  It’s hard to imagine now with kids strapped into cars like astronauts heading into outer space.

I don’t remember everything about that trip with the passage of time.  But I did come away looking at life through a new lens.  I remember standing by the falls, mesmerized by the mist on a summer’s day.  There were people from all over the world, who had left their homes, traveling from faraway lands, to stand where I stood. They took pictures in front of the falls and spoke different languages and looked differently than my family. I found that intoxicating.

Who were they?  Where did they come from?  What did they do there?  Why did they choose to come here? In that moment a switch turned on. A switch that still gives me goosebumps. While I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, I knew I needed to explore this. It was so utterly fantastic to me, even at eight years old. How did people live in other places? What shaped them? What made us different? And what did we have in common?

It was the also the moment when I realized that if people boarded a plane to fly to Niagara Falls, there must be other places that people travelled to.  Beautiful places.  Interesting places.  What did the world have to offer? What was out there? From that moment I knew I had to know.  I went to Niagara Falls a kid. I came home a traveller.  

At its most fundamental being a traveller is to be open and curious.  And while I have been lucky enough in my life to travel to beautiful places – from seeing the beauty of the Faraglioni rocks off the coast of Capri, revelling in the mysteries of the maoi of Easter Island or watching a giraffe run across open plains in Kenya, those moments are wonderful, fleeting, punctuation marks.  It is the ability to be excited and curious by the everyday that sustains the traveller.  I love a grocery store, a neighbourhood restaurant, a winding drive, a beautiful sunset, local live music, great coffee, a cocktail, or a meandering walk with ice cream. People watching local residents anywhere is fascinating. Find joy in the minutiae.  Travelling can be as simple as walking up to your local Main Street and viewing it through a cinematic lens. Where is the beauty in your own backyard?  

Travel has been the river, and the soundtrack, that has flowed through and around the ups and downs of my life. Travel has been a great romance. It has been comprised of the small and the extraordinary. It has brought tremendous joy, and at times, discomfort. But it teaches lessons. There is always something to learn.  I love exploring cities, nature, the ancient and the modern. And culture and food are so inextricably linked.  You can’t have one without the other.  These profound moments have been experienced on my own, and with the people I love, and for that I am eternally grateful.