Category Archives: Thoughts and Musings

24 Hours to Departure

Posted on by under Notes on Travel, Thoughts and Musings, Travel Planning

My life in three bags, for the next 4.5 months. A trip in the making for at least as long. I’ve printed my boarding pass. For the first time, it all feels very real. I feel light, and excited to begin my adventure. Though I will miss people and the easy comfort of home I can’t help feeling elated and a bit cathartic. Life in Northern California for the past few months has been wonderful, relaxed for the most part filled with the company of loved ones. And though I will miss waking each morning here I can’t help but notice how the everyday is beginning to blend as I cease to notice the little things, or appreciate just how beautiful it is here. Travel is so intoxicating in part because every little thing is an adventure, from the procuring of coffee to making my way through a city filled with new sights and smells. I feel deliriously alive, and when I return home it is no longer the same, but renewed as if seeing it for the first time. In this way, life is constantly full , new, exciting. Though uncomfortable and frustrating at times, it is fulfilling in a way unmatched by anything else I’ve experienced thus far.  Continue reading →

And Now I Wait.

Posted on by under Notes on Travel, Thoughts and Musings, Travel Planning, Uncategorized

I can see on the extended forecast that it will be raining in Hong Kong the day I arrive. Not that this particularly matters, since I’ll be in HK for about three hours before connecting to Bangkok (and then Delhi, and finally Kathmandu), but the fact that I can even see the date March 19th closely enough for a weather prediction is pretty exciting.  Feeling so close to leaving (9 days!) has resulted in a frantic attempt to finish everything on my “to-do” list with rapid efficiency. With that list complete, and my bags packed I’m struggling to find things to do. I’ve researched the heck out of my itinerary, and everything is in order. So now, I wait.  Continue reading →

Two Weeks to Go: Timing is Everything.

Posted on by under Notes on Travel, Thoughts and Musings

This journey really began in August, 2009. When I return home this time, it will mark the three-year anniversary of the first time I went abroad. Since that time most everything in my life has changed and evolved to such an extent that my previous life, a mere few years ago seems a distant past, a girl I recognize but can’t quite relate to. When I left the first time I was searching for myself, and came back more lost then when I had left. The reverse culture shock was jarring, I was resentful towards my home country. But I got better, I learned. It’s taken much time since then to begin to figure out, really, what is important. Continue reading →

Travel Confessions: I’m a Closet Nervous-Traveler.

Posted on by under Notes on Travel, Thoughts and Musings, Travel Planning

In the past, a lack of planning resulted in a fair bit of this.

If my planning for my upcoming trip has taught me anything, it’s that I’m way more nervous than I thought I was when it comes to travel. And I’m starting to wonder if my compulsive planning has really just been a method to calm the nervous energy surging through my body, which has been steadily increasing as the days until departure diminish. Continue reading →