Travel broadens the mind

[old bob]

I remember the times of my youth, just after WWII. I was 17 years old, after 4 years of being locked in my small country, with 4 countries in war around me, with no possibilities of travel abroad. And suddenly, after 8^th of May 1945, all doors opened. No more borders with barbed wires and armed soldiers !

I spent my first holidays traveling a month long through Germany, hitchhiking through the Rheinland , visiting the destroyed towns, talking with the surviving Germans and the members of the occupying troops. The impression was awful, but I learnt a lot about the meaning of a defeat and the struggle for life of the survivors in a “lost” country.

After that first step, I needed to change my mind and went south, hitchhiking between Germany and France and came to Paris. What a change ! From defeat to victory, from sadness to joy. The life after war was not easy, there were still restrictions, food wasn’t easy to find, but everybody felt relieved. Freedom was back . I stayed a few weeks at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a district of Paris which has become a mecca of cultural and intellectual life. Philosophers, writers, actors and musicians mingled in the nightclubs and breweries, where the existentialist philosophy and way of life coexisted with American jazz. You can imagine how many friends I made, by day and by night.

I will always remember spring and summer 1946 !

Traveling through hitchhiking, sleeping in free places or in barns, sometimes in youth hostels, living as cheaply as possible, my savings (from my night’s working hours at the Post Office, carrying parcels from 9 pm till 4 am) allowed me to live happily all these days regardless of the small travel costs.

 

All these memories to compare with the situation of today. So my questions :

 

Either in USA or in Europe, could today a young man (or woman !), between18 and 22 years old, spend 2 months traveling through different countries, with just the money he could have earned from week-end’s or night’s jobs ?

Are you, young men (or women) of today reading this, interested to sacrifice 2 months of your life, ready to abandon your neighborhood, your friends, to spend weeks far from home on foreign paths, not knowing what could happen to you tomorrow ?

And you, elder people, are you envious of all the experiences such travels could have brought ? Or maybe, have you also made similar experiences ?

[Dandevdrew]

Wow, what an amazing time you must have had!

 

Would you say that from your perspective as a teenager at the time when the war ended, was there a sense of ‘thank God that’s all over’ and ‘this is the dawn of a brave new world’ where anything could happen or was possible?

 

As for my travels, I spent several months back in 1986/7 when I was 18, working on a kibbutz and back packing around Israel and Egypt. I wouldn’t say that travel broadened my mind in itself; however the people I met certainly did.

 

I was a shy, awkward teenager that was a bit sheltered by my parents. I went out to Israel because my best mate had been there for around a year and he kept on at me to do the same. The organisation that placed volunteers on kibbutz’s put me on one that luckily happened to within hitch hiking distance from the one where my friend was, but was far away enough that we couldn’t meet up too often. That gave me the comfort to know that there was someone to look out for me nearby (he’s always been an older brother figure to me, still is), but not near enough so that I didn’t have to make new friends.

 

The group I went out with were 14 individuals who in a very short space of time became very tight with each other. There was a good mix of nationalities among the volunteers, us Brits, Dutch, a lot of Scandinavians, Swiss and even South Africans.

 

Through those people I learned so much about the world. At the time I had been on a number of anti apartheid demos in London and when I was told that not only were some South Africans going to be joining us, but one of them had been allocated a bed in my room I was not happy to say the least.

 

I think the biggest lesson I learned was that you could not judge a person by their country of origin. As over time I got to be very good friends with almost all the South Africans in that group, two of them became very close. I found that I had so much in common with them, we didn’t entirely agree on politics, but we were able to see through that and put it aside and build a friendship.

 

One of my biggest regrets was that a couple of summers later I was invited out to SA by them to spend the summer driving round the coastline. It would have been great, but I couldn’t go. Not while there was a criminal government oppressing its people in power. They understood my point of view and we still remained in touch for a few years after. Unfortunately by the time apartheid ended we had lost contact, so I never got to have that long summer driving round the coast.

 

I have a million stories from that time and about the people I met. Most of whom I have lost contact with over time. Thanks to Facebook I am back in touch with a couple of them.

 

Looking back, that year 1987, was the best of my life. Even the bad stuff that happened I now look back on and laugh. I wish that when I got back home I hadn’t allowed life to suck me into the rat race as much as I did. I wish I had spent more of my summers back packing around the world.

 

As for teenagers today. Until recently I was the manager of a store that employed quite a few people of student age. I’d tell them stories of my travels and out of the many that I befriended only one of them really caught the travelling bug. I’d like to think that I helped him in as much as I ensured that he had enough hours of work to be able to save up to travel to Australia and when he returned, that he had a job to come back to before he went off to university.

 

Another of the lads that worked for me went off for a summer working in Faliraki. But in the main most of them didn’t like the idea of wandering around the world with a backpack.

 

 

[JamesSavik]

Just don't travel with the army. We never get to go anywhere nice.

[Sara Alva]

I would say that a young person could make it through a decent amount of Central/South America w/ money saved from a weekend/night job. I knew someone who backpacked most of central America, in about a month and half, and he did it with money he'd saved himself. I would have done it as well, but whenever I head down there it's for visiting family and not really for vacationing.

 

The countries in the EU cost more money for us Americans, of course, so you might not be able to get as far there nowadays.

 

I backpacked through Spain on the cheap (staying at hostels, etc.), but I did have to dip into my parent's money a little; the dollar was doing terribly against the Euro the year I went.

 

I'd encourage anyone to travel/study abroad. As cliche as it sounds, it really can change your worldview. One of my close friends in college was a borne-and-bred southerner with some very entrenched beliefs. He'd never been out of the country until after we graduated, when he backpacked through all of Europe. After that experience and a summer in Americorps, he has reevaluated his stance on many things (including gay rights, hooray!) and I believe he is a much better person for it.

[Zolia Lily]

I have already completed one backpacking tour of Europe, and i'm off again in a few months for my second!

 

The first time, i'd saved up for three years right out of highschool and basically told my family i was going to take time off from Uni and that i was going to be in Paris for my 21st Birthday. Mum freaked and decided i couldn't be alone, and then my dad and my sister wouldn't stay home either... so i sparked a family trip. We did Paris and England together, then i left them and they came home. I went onwards! I ended up spending a total of 7 months in Europe, backpacking around. I didn't work while i was over there, but i did spend basically every cent i'd ever earned. I stayed at hostels, caught overnight buses and trains, went to 11 or 12 countries and had the time of my life. I stayed with friends of friends of friends, who put me onto more friends, who have since sent their friends to stay with me here. I studied German for two months and got to live in cities i'd never really thought about beyond looking at the place names on a map. I met people who have become really close friends with and met up again with in other parts of Europe, saw things i'd never dreamed of, discovered art and architecture and history (yes, i feel all of those are sadly lacking in Australia...) and what a real mountain looks like (yeah, those too). I ate too much, got lost, got followed, got hit on by a sleazy Greek man on a ferry (there's no where to run on a ferry...), got sick, got ripped off, got sunburnt, got snow burnt (is that even a word?) found disgusting hostels where i was too afraid for the health of my feet to shower, found amazing hostels, and amazing people and places and just kept going until i ran out of money. The only reason i came home was because i was pretty sure that if i didn't, i'd never finish my degree at all.

 

I was a pretty sheltered kid before i went, i think. I'm still not the most confident, outgoing person, but backpacking was phenomenal. There's nothing like the freedom of it! Nothing too, that will change your whole world view as thoroughly as putting yourself somewhere completely foreign to you. And the memories are amazing. I'm always like 'hey, i did that!'. Sort of can't beleive it sometimes!

I was inspired by my Uncle, who basically dropped out of high school in the 70s, bought a one way ticket to Bali, and then backpacked, hitchhiked and worked all the way through South East Asia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Israel and right through, until he reached London 18 months later. It was his friends who i got to stay with, and who have sent me more friends. No one else in our family before or after him had ever really travelled anywhere. But i like to think i've inspired them

 

Bob- i can't imagine getting to travel in the era you did! It would have been incredible. Even though i visited basically every musuem i could, i am so aware that it's absolutely nothing compared to actually being there, at that point in time..... i can't begin to imagine. Pretty sure that's jealousy i'm feeling... I have to say i love that about Europe. You can go to modern cities, and see medieval town centres that have hardly changed in hundreds of years all really close by, see east and west, and to me it seems like all this history just squashed down on more history. Coming from Australia, where if there's a building around that dates from the 1800s it's an old one... you just can't compare it. Seeing everything that's out there. It changes how you see everything. It's a whole vast world out there. And now i have itchy feet. Travelling is completely addictive.

 

So I got home mid 2009, and now i'm off again. This time with half the funds and with no definite plans to come back

Can't wait!!!

Edited February 18, 2011 by Zolia Lily

[TetRefine]

I haven't traveled a ton internationally throughout my life, but I have traveled some. The first time I went to a different country was in 2004 when I was 12. I went to Atlantis Paradise Island Resort in the Bahamas. My perception of the Bahamas was one of beauty and everything was flourishing. Boy was I wrong. I remember taking the car from the airport to the resort, and we went through the city of Nassau. I was shocked at the eye-dropping amount of poverty that I was surrounded by. People were living out of shacks, and everything was filthy and an eye sore. That completely shattered my perception of how people live because I had never seen poverty before like this. It was shocking to a 12 year old from the comfortable American suburbs.

 

I also went to Montreal, and I absolutely loved that city. It was so sexually liberal and something so different from what I was used to back in the states. There were so many sex shops, strip clubs, and smokin' hot women walking around in very revealing clothing at night. I would go back there in a heart beat. I was 12 then too.

 

The British and US Virgin Islands were fun too, but they were basically like Little America.