After more than 40 flights It’s not fun anymore.

After so many trips, traveling is not fun anymore. My first flight was to the USA in Oregon State in 2012. I went for coursing an exchange program at Oregon State University. I remember being excited seeing for the first time how my fear of highs was suppressed when the plane departed. It is a fun sensation and adrenaline, of course for people that don't like highs, such as me.

After the plane departs from your home country getting further away you start seeing the continental lands from the sky. I don't remember where I had to do a change of flight, maybe it was in Panama and in Miami. In both, the pattern repeats, long lines for check-in your bags, long hours to wait for the next flight stuck inside the airports, expensive branches of fast food and very expensive branches of healthy food. Thousands of people from all around the world.

I know that nowadays everybody takes it for granted. Travelling has become so common nowadays. Although, I must tell that for someone that comes from a humble background of a hardworking middle-class family in Ecuador South America is always shocking the first time. Most Ecuadorians cannot make it out of the country or if they do is to their neighbor countries by bus or walking. This reality is due to economic instability and corrupted governments.

I am grateful I have had the chance to experience these developed world daily routines. In Corvallis Oregon in 2012, I had the chance to go around the province in the bus and with friends in a car. I also had the chance to visit Seattle in Washington. Always that find myself in new cities and places I try to go alone any time I can. It is always rewarding encountering yourself with different experiences on the road, especially when it seems to be risky. For example, several times I have lost bus schedules due to my fault or their deficiencies and I had encountered myself stuck, scared and alone.

I have started to realize that the real traveling life is full of adrenaline but definitely requires a lot of physical and mental effort when you encounter yourself lost. Sometimes you have to find your way out just by walking and asking people, being in contact with the uncertainties of the world.

Four years after the USA experience I have come to Canada to study a master degree in Computer Science. Here was different, I had a job and had a lot of projects out of my city. Because of it either visiting my family or for business, I have had to travel from flight to flight to Peru(Lima), Colombia(Bogota), Panama again, and within Canada, to Calgary in a Greyhound bus, to Victoria BC in plane and Vancouver in a ferry. All of this in a period of just one year. For me it was astonishing, Canada is the land of opportunities.

Unfortunately, all of those trips I experienced the same long lines, the same exhausting waiting time when you dont sleep very well, keep spending money, carry your bags, the security check(I hate this I feel like a criminal, I am sure I am not the only one that feels like that, I understand though must be because security issues), etc. What I usually do on those waiting periods of time is to write or to work, which is ok but after all these trips I started wondering:

Is it really fun traveling? Or is an exhausting, tedious and expensive routine?

Of course I have had great experiences when I arrived at my final destination!. But then you also encounter the tedious work of finding a place to stay safe and secure and go there with all your bags. I am not financially free yet so I dont mind taking the bus for going to my temporary place. Nowadays is a little bit easier with Airbnb but it doesn’t make less stressful. Moreover, I have experienced really awful preoccupations when I have lost all my documents in a distant city(Just happened recently, I lost my wallet in a Starbucks but the next day they found it, such a relief).

Maybe I am a pessimist or just a sincere guy. I wish It could be more relaxing and emotionally rewarding either we travel for entertaining or for business. For example, there should be places to meditate or for doing yoga or for doing some exercise. I think we also deserve some healthy habits while traveling. I guess those initiatives would be private first but it should be free someday as we move faster to a changing and more connected world.

Right now I am waiting for the next flight to Calgary in 4 hours meanwhile I am watching through the glass all the planes carrying the exhausted people I am talking about from one place to another. In spite of that, I will keep traveling since we all know are more physically connected than ever before. It has become a part of our lives…