Our readers share tales of their rambles around the world.
Highlights and high points: Sunset and stargazing at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hilo, Hawaii; the torii gates at Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto, Japan; the endlessness of the city of Tokyo, as seen from above; light art at the annual Vivid festival in Sydney; hiking New Zealand's Milford Track; the travertine terraces of Pamukkale, Turkey; countless migrating birds flying over Rome at dusk; the fascinating temples of Angkor in northern Cambodia; and standing on the Acropolis in Athens. I went skydiving for the first time in New Zealand and took a sunrise hot-air balloon ride over the strangely beautiful rock formations of Cappadocia, Turkey. I encountered so many different building designs across climates, available resources, purposes and population densities that I developed an interest in architecture — especially of the unusual, eco-friendly, urban and underground varieties.
Cultural connection or disconnect: During those 11 months, I stayed in over 50 hostels around the world. I had conversations with roommates from countries I'd visited and from other countries that I hope to visit someday . Topics included differences in health-care access, educational philosophy and how to access Facebook and Google when the Internet is censored.
There were chance conversations and encounters that led to fun things I never would have known about otherwise. For example, a roommate in Invercargill, New Zealand, urged me to go see the South Island's southernmost town, Bluff, which turned out, among other things, to have a beach full of beautiful seashells. While in Bluff, another conversation with a local led me to visit the town of Oamaru, farther north, which I otherwise never would have known is the "steampunk capital of New Zealand" and home to beautiful Victorian architecture. After staying the night at an artsy hostel in Oamaru, I gave two hitchhiking roommates a ride to their next town in return for my first didgeridoo music lesson. You never know what you'll learn or whom you'll meet from just saying "hello" — and hostels are full of other budget travelers who want to see and learn about the world. It was another lesson in prioritizing flexibility of travel plans, and I never found myself short on options.
Biggest laugh or cry: Besides all the fun stuff, I visited several museums and memorials to the victims of wars and atrocities, experiences that left me unable to speak. One was the preserved torture and execution sites from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime, including the S-21 secret prison in Phnom Penh and mass graves at Choeung Ek, where hundreds of thousands were tortured and executed and human bones today occasionally surface in the dirt pathways traversed by daily visitors. Another was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where artifacts of prisoners' lives and signs of the efficiency of the murderous systems are preserved in poignant detail and on a horrifying scale. It was further sobering to remember that these and other exhibits — including the graphic museum in Hiroshima, Japan, and the World War II sites in and near Bastogne, Belgium — commemorated events that happened within living human memory.
How unexpected: There were two paradoxes that were illustrated over and over. First, it is a huge world but also a small town. The more I traveled, the more I became aware of how comparatively tiny a fraction of the planet I, or anyone, could ever hope to see. At the same time, I was amazed at how pervasive English has become as an international language and how closely tied — for better or worse — the business relationships and therefore economies of more countries have become.
Expectations can be good, but they are often proved wrong. Although there were some destinations that lived up to the hype, I repeatedly found that places or experiences for which I had more modest or no expectations turned out to be jewels. (Incidentally, I think this observation about expectations applies to more in life than just travel.) Among others, the revitalized cities of Krakow, Poland, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, blew away some outdated impressions I had had of them.
Also, I probably won't take American public smoking bans for granted ever again.
Fondest memento or memory: I must say that I'm grateful never to have lived in a war zone. I found myself drawn over and over to stories, however divergent in nature or scope or cultural backdrop, of communities or nations that were recovering from something — whether it be natural disasters, ethnopolitical conflict or failed economic or governmental systems. There is something powerful about seeing the resilience, imagination and courage that the human spirit can muster in the face of ruin and despair.
Long-term travel also taught me how much I need roots in a community. I made a lot of "24-hour friends" and have kept in touch with some. But there is nothing like old friends — and nothing like home.
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