My ears perked up. “Winnipeg”, I had heard the girl say, I was sure of it. I had a fleeting sensation of excitement, of hearing the name of my hometown dropped casually into conversation, and I briefly wondered why she was mentioning it at all. This entire process took about 1.5 seconds in my brain, before I once again stopped myself, rolled my eyes.
“I’m in Winnipeg, you idiot,” I thought to myself. I had been for a month.
I went to Burning Man in 2011, and stayed the full eight days. I camped in the desert under the big clear sky, my days spent riding the playa on my bicycle, making friends, cooking grilled cheese sandwiches, my nights a hazy blur of stilt-walkers, fire-breathers, mutant cars shaped like scorpions and jellyfish. I wore outfits I threw together from a garbage bag of costumes in the trunk; I wore saris and glitter, fake fur and angel wings, tutus and sometimes nothing at all. When I first reached the gates on that very first day, a girl wearing pink fishnets made me roll around in the playa, coating my hair in the greyish dust. “Welcome home,” she told me, and hugged me. I was instantly in love with this alternate universe, this utopian dream of creativity and art and acceptance.
There are very few people I like to travel with for extended periods of time. Sure, most people can get along for a few days or so, but when it comes to the big adventures, the long journeys, you want someone on your side whom you can trust, someone who understands you, someone who shares your values and your interests. Then who better to travel with than your mum?
Despite writing online about my travels for eight years now, I’m relatively new to the travel blogging community and the subsequent social media. Since signing up for Twitter and Facebook in the past year, I’ve come across a lot of fellow travellers, and I’ve read a lot of biographies. One line that pops up a lot? “I’m a twenty-something traveller.” Recently, when reading another Twitter bio with the same line, I had a sudden thought: I’m not going to be a twenty-something traveller for much longer. I turn 30 next spring.
I don’t have one of those, “I quit my job and left my cubicle life behind to go and explore the world!” type stories. I’ve worked in offices, yes, and worked for companies I hated and companies I knew wouldn’t advance my career – hell, I’m working at an office right now, for six weeks. I’ve always known this work is temporary, though, and that the money earned would allow me to travel (or in this case, allow me to save money while I wait for my UK visa). I’ve been offered full-time positions and turned them down. I’ve never worked a day in my life that didn’t contribute, either directly or indirectly, to the life I’ve always known I would live, a life of travel.
Ilha Grande, Brazil I’d replay the evening if I could. It was one of those muggy nights in South America, when the stars hung low and the moon cast its magic across…