It’s been over a year since we’ve travelled internationally, but now that Steve and I have our first vaccine shots, the possibility of jetting off somewhere doesn’t seem as far off as it did just a month or two ago. Frankly, I’ve blocked all travel thoughts from my mind over the past year as a coping mechanism. Lately, though, I’ve started to daydream about where we might take our first trip. I’ve realized there are some surprising things I miss about travel.

#1 Early departures

I feel fortunate that Steve loves travel planning and booking because I don’t have to do any of it. That said, he will often book cheaper flights that leave at five or six in the morning. I always swear a blue streak when he does this, which infuriatingly has zero impact on his future behaviour. 

I would take an early flight in a heartbeat right now. I miss lying in bed the night before, wide awake with anxiety that I will sleep through the two alarms we’ve set. My thoughts are filled with a mix of things I might have forgotten to do and excitement about the adventure ahead. 

I miss climbing into a taxi with my sleep-deprived head feeling like it’s full of sawdust and gliding through empty streets past dark houses whose inhabitants have yet to wake and face the day.

#2 Bad in-flight movies

The only time I watch an in-flight movie is on very long flights once I’ve run out of other things to do and have resolved that despite my best efforts, I am not going to fall asleep.  I’ve usually already seen most of the movies that appeal to me and end up watching something that the director and actors likely wish they could delete from their IMBD profiles. 

The thing is, those movies always seem better to me than they actually are. On one of the last flights I took, I watched a comedy I thought was hilarious, and I went on and on about it to Steve afterwards. When I rewatched it on Netflix a while ago, it was clear that I was laughing under the influence of a glass of wine or two combined with high altitude. 

#3 Jet lag’s foggy haze

I’ve spent so much time trying to recuperate from jet lag that I am puzzled by how ready I am to embrace its body-altering effects.

I have a romanticized recollection of arriving overseas so tired that it’s difficult to understand the hotel desk clerk’s instructions for finding the elevators up to my room. I’m unexplainably ready to put up with the forced slog through the day of arrival–walking sundrenched streets while longing to retreat under the fluffy hotel bed duvet because my body says it’s 2 a.m.

#4 Airports

I know I’m an outlier, but I have always LOVED airports. Still, I’m surprised at how much I miss them. I miss the clashing scents of the duty-free perfume counter with the inevitable cinnamon bun shop across the corridor as I’m rushing to catch a flight. I miss Steve poring over the liquor selection of said duty-free shop looking for a variety of rum he hasn’t tried. I long to be in that queue to board the plane as I make up stories about the others in line — where and why they are travelling and what possessed that one person to bring a full-sized pillow along.

 

airport corridor

#5 Language barriers

I’m a culturally sensitive traveller who values connecting with the people who live in the place I’m travelling to. That’s why I always spend a whopping three days before departure scrambling to learn their entire language. Oh, I always have good intentions of dedicating the required months of study to command the basic phrases that will put my worldly cachet on display, but other things always seem to distract me.

I miss screwing up the courage to trot out a badly pronounced phrase at a shop or restaurant only to cave once the waiter or sales associate presumes we’re going to have an actual conversation in their native tongue. I’m always deeply grateful that many people in the service industry worldwide speak English (usually in addition to a few other languages) and embarrassed that I can only speak one and a quarter (at best). 

#6 Meeting Steve at a destination

Given how much Steve used to travel, I often didn’t tag along or an entire trip. I would meet him at one of his destinations after we’d been apart for a week or two. Even though it was sometimes a drag to spend endless hours in transit alone, it was always kind of romantic to meet up in an airport or train station, upon which I’d chastise him for booking such an early morning flight for me. Before long, though, I’d be telling him about the hilarious movie I saw on the plane.

#7 Coming home

After a year of becoming overly acquainted with our home through organizing and reorganizing closets, painting rooms, and hours in the kitchen perfecting new cooking techniques, I am more than ready to take a breather from it. I love our place and have a profound appreciation for the comforts it has provided us during the pandemic. But there is a singular joy about returning home after a trip as you look forward to your own bed and the particular way the water from your showerhead feels against your back. I miss looking forward to coming home.

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