Travels

I booked my accommodation in Bali today. Off in a couple of weeks. While I was looking for a place to stay I remembered my earliest recollection of travel. As a kid whenever I thought of  travel  I would imagine it to be by myself. And since I had the luxury to imagine it would always be some woody place near a waterfall with fall colors or I would be cycling in the streets of Greece... My idea of these places consisted solely of a few favorite pages of picture perfect shots from the volumes of Britanica`s Encyclopedias. These giants of information were guarded in a top shelf of an intricately carved wooden cupboard. Many a idle sunday afternoon was spent reaching out to these volumes, tracing for the contours and topography on those glossy pages and thinking I was walking among those intriguing people , tasting that divine food.  To be fair everything looked so dreamy in the encyclopedia even when surrounded by words like poverty, population. But think my whole idea  symbolized freedom and flying away from conventional trips- from packed home cooked food  on train rides, from meticulous planning and packing to cover every need and every situation, from the comforting security of adult attention- To somewhere unknown. 

Its been many years since then and travel now is always to a different country. But nothing changed- even today when I am planning  a trip , all that I want to do is grab my passport,wallet,phone& camera and hop on a plane , land there , talk to information and people there and see how it goes. I inherently loathe extensive travel research and planning beforehand. I do not like to tick mark places or do what lonely planet tells you to do. I usually end up at the airport with the most basic prep. The rest I like to work my way around and see the city on my own terms some places recommended and some places discovered. Yep! its not a practical way of life or travel but thats the way I like it. luckily all my trips so far have been amazing without any hiccups ,mugging or being stranded.

But the one thing that changed over the years is - My travels are no longer about the dreamy places , but  instead more  about the company now. For whenever I think back about a trip its not the beaches, woods, castles that come to my mind but the people in the trip- Friends goofing up, coffee shop conversations, airport games, dancing into the night, racing on frozen rivers, bonding with  backpackers over stories...