As I was brought up not traveling a lot, and even then not too far from home, it took quite a long time for me to realise that I feel most myself when I am out in the big wide world around the most diverse kind of people.
Well, it is not entirely true that we did not travel, because my grandma used to takes us with her visiting her sisters, about 150 kms away (2 hour train ride). And before she grew older, we went quite a lot. We also went on day trips sometimes with my mom and her friends, but it was rare and never too far away. We only went on vacation (to lake Balaton) two times during my entire childhood. Mind you, I grew up in the last years of communism and the first years after the regime change in Hungary, when traveling was still a foreign idea (pun intended) for most of us. Coming to think of it, ours was still quite a lot of traveling in comparison to some of my classmates back then.
I even went on my first foreign trip back then at age 12 with school visiting our Austrian “pen-friends” with whom we practiced English in writing. Only a few years after the regime change a trip like that really felt like changing from black and white to colour TV, it really felt like another world.
Anyway, I knew back then that I enjoyed getting on the train and going to new places, but still wasn’t aware of how much more is out there to see. And I wasn’t brought up to wonder about that either. My parents to this day claim that they are happy staying at home and don’t often long to see other places. For a very long time I think I internalized this kind of thinking and just didn’t think that traveling is something I should want to pursue.
After I started life on my own, moved to new cities, started visiting other places, I started to feel how different it is elsewhere, and how each place has its own unique atmosphere to discover. Besides opening my mind to new cultures, I really felt it first hand how traveling can boost creativity and overall well-being. If you read upon it, science backs it up! Moreover, I do believe that the more you know about the world, the more you get to know yourself.
One of my favourite things ever is to go to a new place and get lost while discovering a new city. I am a great walker (I could write a different post about how walking wasn’t in my culture growing up and how I embraced it as an adult), and I could walk for hours on end in places unknown to me. Of course with a smartphone in your pocket you can’t really get lost these days, but I strive to use maps only when I really need them and consider these aimless wonderings one of the greatest pleasures in life.
Not long ago I heard from a travel blogger whose favourite destination is New York, that he has a walking route that he has to go along every time he arrives there. Just to see if everything is still there where it was last time. I do have the same with my favourite places, too! My top three favourite destinations that I regularly go back to are London, Vienna and The Hague. I have different reasons for longing to go back to each, but with these three cities I don’t really feel like visiting foreign places anymore, I feel more like going home.
I will share my experiences and favourite spots in each of my top destinations as well as some other trips I took and I can’t wait to write about my adventures yet to come! I hope it’s going to be soon!
