PHOTOGRAPHY by LYNENE
When I was about ten, I remember sudden adrenaline flooding my cells every time I perused a map of the world. I’d get so excited and pumped up wondering What’s everybody doing out there, what am I missing!? … that my heartrate would accelerate into a thumping so hard I could see it through my chest. My body’s reaction scared me! To bring my heartrate back down, I had to walk away from the map.
When I grew up, finally on my own, I set my sights to conquer the world … albeit in my own way. Having no intention to seize or overthrow, my aim was to become a global participant. I sought to discover, uncover and freefall into everything earthly— allowing people, places, culture and history to affect me. A hundred countries later, I realize that the greatest virtue for global adventure is becoming the sum total of all worldly experience. Becoming in this way, is my nirvana.
I am a traveler for the most part and a tourist occasionally. A traveler steps on a plane with a one-way ticket and steps off ready to embrace a culture— eating, sleeping, moving about the locals and temporarily adopting their way of life. By contrast a tourist has limited time, stays in a hotel or luxury resort, participates in planned activities and shops a lot.
Both tourist and traveler are honorable titles. The difference is that a tourist usually comes home rested and manicured, whereas the traveler turns up at the home airport chewing on a hangnail, in tread-bare shoes, happily wearing a dirty backpack with a broken zipper.Both are honorable, however the one with the best stories to tell— is the traveler.
A traveler knows things a tourist never could.