“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
People often ask me if I plan to travel forever. If I want to completely forgo the nine-to-five job, the house and accompanying mortgage, and the sedentary sort of lifestyle that most people live. Though I do plan to travel somewhat permanently throughout the next decade or so, and will continue to travel and adventure throughout my whole life, I do indeed someday want a house (or yurt!) to call home and a community to call my own. Though Kevin and I both love this lifestyle and will miss it someday I’m sure, we both know that raising children, holding jobs, and making a home are in our distant somewhat sedentary future as well. But that doesn’t mean our journey will be over, it just means that, when the time is right, a new one will begin.
“Someday, all of this will come to an end; the sleeping rough, chiseled calves, calloused arse, taking 8 hours of exercise a day, wearing the same clothes for two weeks straight, having an interesting topic for conversation, worrying about incline, gradient and road surfaces, eating like a horse, being able to eat a horse, not knowing the name of the town I’m in, forgetting the name of the person I’m spending the night with, cycling another twenty km till lunch to save 50 cents, living out of a waterproof bag in a steel trailer, saying Irlanda 30 times a day, saying no/non/niet/nine/ not Hollanda… Irrrrrrlanda, assessing the quality of a book by its size and weight as well as its content, wondering why anyone would ever wear clothes that are not waterproof/breath- able/quick drying/light/thermal.
Someday, I’ll be home; I’ll have a fridge, a cooker, a shower, a cupboard and a bed, I’ll be able to close a door and be by myself, talk to people in complex English with an Irish accent using colloquialisms, slang and very specific Alan Partridge references, I’ll be able to get out of my bed and not have to pack it away, and go to bed without waiting for darkness or asking some one’s permission, I’ll have to get up at a specific time and do tasks that someone else dictates, I’ll have a phone and a set of keys.
Someday, my life will be normal again, and uninteresting, and I’ll probably miss my stop on the train because I was daydreaming about when I lived on a special simple world called the road.”
- Fearghal O’Nuallain
This quote (it’s rather long but worth it I promise) is what spurred me to write this post. Though I agree with nearly every single phrase, I don’t agree that once us travelers take up a sedentary life that it has to be “normal” or “uninteresting.” Travel changes you from within, and those changes stay with you once you physically stop moving. My passion for life, my curious nature, and my uninhibited love of adventure will enable me to create a fun and learning filled sedentary life just as it’s enhanced my life on the road.
