7 tips for the wandering soul
We’re generally conceived in a context. Where we come from, grow up, attend school, perhaps enter into partnerships, and establish roots. But this does not depict who we are, nor does justice to the infinite array of possibilities that can cross the life of a human being.
I left my home country Sicily in 2010. Ever since I lived, traveled, backpacked, volunteered, worked, and wandered in countless places. From the rice fields of Vietnam to the empty spaces of American deserts, I sometimes found myself in front of a blank form that asked for a home address — and I would promptly fill it with my brother’s (unlike me at that time, conducting a routine office life on the Italian border to Slovenia). Another time, on a rusty night train to Baku from Georgia, I found myself wondering about the implications of having an uncomfortable stamp on my passport — and how some travels need to be planned according to political idiosyncrasies.
I know how it feels to have “itchy feet”. If you’re thinking of leaving certainties for embarking on a journey towards the unknown, know that it can be rewarding. But, carried away by glossy tropical palms on magazines, or tanned influencers’ feeds, very often we miss the most authentic experience of discovery and exploration — and the beauty of its struggles, too.
1. Check the place out — or maybe don’t
In 2015 I moved to Maastricht, in the Netherlands, after only having visited the city for 3 hours. On a warm Saturday, June morning, a random train from Liège brought me and my bestie right to the heart of downtown. I was astounded by the feeling of class and neat composition, and in 3 hours, I fell in love with everything. The classic handmade leather pointed shoes in sight from clean windows, peaks of giants sequoia dotted by villas with sloping roofs, the smell of dark chocolate sticks melting inside warm, sugary waffles. The quiet amidst the chaos, and all sorts of bikes stacking inside a cage next to the train station, like many clucking hens. I still don’t know exactly what it was that drew me there like a magnet, but it felt absolutely right and never regretted it. Can you move somewhere without a prior visit? Sure you can — but reality might be quite different than what’s inside your desires, projections and ideas. Alain the Botton referred to it as: “…the difference between what we imagine of a place and what can occur when we reach it”. [cit, The Art of Travel]
2. Know how you’ll communicate
There is no language that attracts me on a phonetic and intuitive level like Greek. It might be the origin of my surname, the fact that “every Sicilian is a bit Greek”, it might be that blue and bougainvillea-filling landscapes next to hot-tempered, chain-smoking men, feel like home. Same as: the intoxicating smell of thyme, and sage, and rosemary — along with paths to unspoiled wild beaches.
But in 2019, I was in an ER room in Rethymno Hospital, the third largest city on the island of Crete. I was bent in pain, trying to communicate with the middle-aged nurse behind the dirty screen. Sweaty, tired, sitting next to a broken mini A/C unit, her English less than basic. Did I get to see the doctor, get checked, and be sent away with a prescription for my IBS? Sure I did; the doctor, like many Greek doctors, had studied in Florence and spoke Italian to me. But was I hoping I could know more than yamas (cheers), horiatiki (Greek Salad), and kokkino krasi (red wine)? Absolutely!
3. Do you want a 3-month-adventure or a year-long move?
There were times I was only up for wanders. It was exciting, especially when there was no trace of a financial or home address, no keys inside my bag, or bills to pay every 27th. I was a citizen of my own world. I remember woofing in Bandon, Ireland, during a break from College, looking after happy cows and salads before hitting the only pub in town. Or, a couple of years ago, I was living inside a little van in Fuerteventura, after a professional burnout and my dad’s loss. Whatever the reason, know that a romantic short escape, isn’t the same as living for an extended amount of time. In the former case, you won’t need to pay taxes or, most likely, apply for a VISA, dealing with bank accounts and accountants, social security and all the grown-up stuff. In fact, this might be the main reason many like to wander: it lets you stay away from responsibilities for a little bit. These types of experiences are both legit and exciting — but profoundly different in the way they play out.
4. An open mind towards a different culture might not be enough
After I fractured my ankle during my farewell party in Dublin in 2015, I moved to the Netherlands clinging to a crutch and rehabilitating through physiotherapy. I was in physical pain — and not being able to play sports put me in a state of weak mental health — plus I had just moved to a new place that I still wasn’t used to. In the Netherlands, the experience with the first doctor I went to was a complete disaster. He showed zero empathy for my deep sadness because I wasn’t able to exercise, and he used to give me straight orders from the height of his desk like a dictator, looking down at my discomfort with a frown temple and cold eyes. After one month of no results and frustration, I wanted to change practice and my health insurance gave me a hard time. It was “unacceptable to apply for another doctor without a good reason”, because apparently mine wasn’t good enough, and was putting the doctor in a bad light. I could not believe what I was going through. I thought that I was living in a free and civil country. Trapped by an absurd bureaucratic detail that reminded me of the Italian system, it took me more than two months before I could land in Sonja’s office — a young, lovely, and plump red-cheeked therapist who put me back on track in a just couple of weeks. Not everything is as easy as it seems from the outside until you find yourself in a situation of need, and you’ll learn your truth as you carry on.
5. Why do you travel?
For a very long time, deep down I believed there was no place, anywhere on earth, where I could live and be happy. When I was in the Netherlands, I found myself dreaming of Thailand, and when I was in Thailand, it was Greece I dreamt of. Sometimes we treat places like lovers, or books. We don’t really want them, although that’s what we say to ourselves. The truth might be that we want to keep ourselves busy — moving all the time — so that we can turn away from what we’re afraid of facing inside ourselves. (I’m not saying that moving all the time is a bad thing per se — quite the opposite, in fact). But being aware of our circumstances helps us understand ourselves and our true desires.
In the words of Paul Theroux: “…This seemed like an excellent plan: To embark on a voyage of self-discovery. To get lost. It didn’t matter where, but the South Pacific seemed like a good place. The crucial thing about this sort of journey is to keep going until you drop. Destination is unimportant, because, as the Indian sage M. N. Chatterjee often said: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there…” [cit, The Happy Islands of Oceania]
6. How do you live?
After all these countries and dusty backpacks and nights spent without knowing where to go the morning after, I truly believe that two very different places can be equally wonderful and interesting, or terribly depressing. You can’t ever remove the individuality or identity of a place: its culture and history, the dominant religion if any, landscape, and climate. But it is in each of these spec that lies that same principle that inhabits each of us, and all the things — because we are one, and on a deeper level, everything is connected. If you’ve seen a million waterfalls, adding another ten won’t leave you stunned unless you have the capacity to be awed by life even in the little things. How do you go about your day? Do you feel energised just by being alive, or do you have the feeling that you’re dragging your flesh and bones? No country or place on earth alone will ever have the power to make you feel better person. Chances are, that if you do travel on your own, everything that is unprocessed in your life will pop out — unless you keep running away from it.
7. Travelling tires your body — and it isn’t for everyone
Last year, at 38 years old, I bought my first carry-on luggage. Since I started hitting the road when I was 17, I have only owned backpacks. This is when I realised that some things had started to change. This year, I bought an even bigger piece of luggage, and more luxurious. My blue North Face rucksack now sits next to both of them in the locker, and for a couple of weeks, it used to be envious of a life that just ended. Now all of this makes me laugh: we can’t stop time, we can’t avoid change, and that’s perfectly okay. Life is perfect the way it is — when we accept it that way.
The takeaway
We should all have the courage to live the life we want for us. Although true freedom begins within our minds — and it’s quite a deep state that has to do only partially with the experiential life — the choices we make should be solely ours. Happy travels, within or without!
Some resources:
“The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home”, Pico Iyer
“The Tao Te Ching”, Laozi
“Daring Greatly”, Brené Brown
“Living from the Heart”, Nirmala
“The drama of the gifted child”, Alice Miller
“Love, Freedom, Aloneness”, Osho
“The Art of Travel”, Alain De Botton
“La non via”, Giovanni Andreoli
“Travel as transformation”, Gregory Diehl
“Walden” Henry David Thoreau
“Buddha in Blue Jeans”, Tai Sheridan
“I miti del nostro tempo”, Umberto Galimberti
