There was always a strange voice in my head when I was away and it led me to believe that without a shadow of a doubt, I would be back, doing this travel thing again and living the experience all over. I don’t think you can relive an experience twice, it can be similar but not the same.
Every now and then that voice in my head would have an off day and remind me of what I lacked at the time and what would make my travels better and more fun if I had it.
Now I am looking at the possibility of travel again, I’ve recalled some of these things and listed the ones I class as my Top 5 Wishes and what I would need to do to achieve them.
1. Have laser eye surgery
I am blind as a bat. Most of my family are as well and they have had laser eye surgery already so I know the benefits. It is life changing to some with impaired sight – just to wear sunglasses or jump in the sea without having to worry about contact lenses falling out would honestly be epic. But at £2k per eye, it could be some time!
2. Have a way of earning while travelling
Self-explanatory really. Have fun, earn money, keep doing what I love. I’m working on a few things and think travelling will enable some of it. I know I can DJ as I did when I travelled before, this got me food, accommodation and a few well paid nights, but isn’t sustainable. Really you need a business or high demand service. Watch this space.
3. Have a beach body
Wouldn’t we all right? I’m a bigger guy and it’s tough travelling with dudes that love to hang about with their shirts off. To be fair to them, Asia is hot. Backpackers don’t travel with much and it would be ace to have a good body to go swimming with. I’m working on getting fit, the beach body may have to wait but confidence and determination may see this wish ticked off sometime. If not, I could always see if my eye surgeon knows a plastic surgeon!
4. Have an awesome camera
This was a huge wish. Perhaps I should also include – Knowing how to use a camera. I was the most amateur photographer to ever pretend to know why I choose to take pictures on the sports setting – all I actually knew was that pictures looked less blurry on that setting. I think I dropped the word aperture in there when explaining my reasons once… though incidentally relevant, at the time I was chatting twaddle. Now I have a pretty sweet camera, the Canon 60D with a great lens and am saving for another lens. I also have a good snappy snap, the Canon Elph300 and can honestly say I no longer use preset settings and know something about something called composition.
5. Afford to do more things
This is a pretty basic and broad one. A bit obvious really. I spent a large part of my travels working and squeezing a lot into a short space of time. I feel that if had more money and time I could have enriched the experience. That said the experience was quite enriched anyway but for example, I could have afforded to stay and watch more sunsets in the Grampians if I didn’t need to go back to work the next day.
So there it is. 1 done out of 5 and a possible 2 more that are in sight. The surgery and body will have to wait but at the end of the day, even without these things, I want to go back and if I can have half as much of the experience again, I’d be a happy chap.
t’ah.