Winds in my sails... My travel stories(Part-1)

Traveling is something that really enthralls, entices me; imparts a new vigor to my mind. I become a child again during my trips to new places. I get a new high to life when I visit new places and experience them. The world is full of surprises and you need to explore it to absorb those surprises. Journeys are not just changes in the scenes you see, but also the changes you experience in your life due to those differences. These new places make you experience a new feeling which leaves a trail in the journey of your life.

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” - Samuel Johnson.

I have had my share of traveling stories to share. I can’t say that I am a frequent traveler or that I have been to the lengths and the breadths of India, but I have had my own share of travel experiences. I have visited many parts of Western, Northern and Central India. South and Eastern parts of India are still not discovered by me. I feel as if I have just covered a page of a book. There is so much to explore and to absorb.

Traveling is not an easy task. Lucky are the people who can travel often. My trips for example are restricted due to my job, my responsibilities towards my family, money and above all the inhibitions in the mind of people that it’s not safe for a girl to travel alone. I envy people who work half of the year and travel the other half across the world.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you din’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain.

When you travel, you meet new people; eat different kinds of food, see the customs, the religion and way of living of other people. I believe that I have learnt and grown with each of the new places I visited.

Journeys will not always turn-up as you imagine them to be. During travel you put your trust on strangers, go to unfamiliar places, far off from the comfort zones of your everyday life, things are bound to go wrong at some or the other level. True travel is launching oneself into the unknown. There is no excuse for the unknown risks, except that one offers oneself in a spirit of experimentation. But still, I consider the rewards of the journey far outweigh the risk of leaving the harbor.

It’s very well said: "A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." –- John Steinbeck.

In my forthcoming travel posts, I will share my travel experiences in my blog….