Back to the quotidian

And so the holiday was over. A bit of an anticlimax: a backpack of clothes to launder, long fingernails and a list of resolutions some of which I would falter in. Then again it would be good to eat regular meals again and not sweat in humidity. Perhaps I should go later in the season; Malta and Cyprus could be winter destinations for the Australian heatwave and bushfire season.

I never felt that my belongings were inadequate; I travel light, my backpack weighed 11 kg at maximum and I could have taken that down 2 kg. It's eye-opening how much one can do really do without in life. We tie ourselves down with routines and possessions, but life needs far far less. A dictum that I like from recent research on happiness states: Collect experiences, not things. But the planner in me wonders how to go about converting chattel to experiences.

Although I read guide books when planning and had copies of pages on my Kindle, I hardly used those, instead consulting websites on my smartphone or netbook. Many decisions were taken on the spur of the moment. The Internet has surely transformed travel. I'm actually rather conservative here; I know other travellers are using the Internet in even more immediate ways. I still like to sift the day's happenings before posting. Next trip I will buy mobile data instead of leeching off free WiFi APs as it's very handy to pull up maps and search for information on the move.

Though it may be unessential to the imagination, travel is necessary to an understanding of men. — Freya Stark

With gratitude to E and P.

October 2015