Why Travel?

Why do we travel?  Spend enough time on the road and your fellow travelers start to look alike.  Most are Caucasian, either from North America, Europe, or Australia.  We are also from North America and our up bringing in the US gave us the ability to make choices for ourselves and to take chances.  So, while in thinking, we're Americans our looks are Pakistani.

We found ourselves part of the tourist mix a few times as well but did stand out due to our brown color from being born and spending some time in Asia.  The notion of minorities traveling is new, granted Chinese and other Asian nationalities are starting to get out but the numbers are still relatively small and we therefore raised eyebrows in several towns where the locals couldn't really place us; most thought we were Indian.

Everyone's travel experinces are unique, so for us, since we don't drink, we saw a lot of towns with bars and the usual travelers enjoying themselves, we would often opt for something like meditating at a mosque or spending time with the locals at a market or cooking a meal at our hotel.  We never shut ourselves out from experiencing or being with people but wanted to break away from the tried and true of the tourist hordes and have a chance to engage and experience as much of the local life as possible.  Did that mean, declining requests to spend time with fellow travelers and instead enjoy each other's company or explore the beauty of a small town, probably yes.

2 comments:

  1. Great post. Now that I have been living in Mexico for about 14 months, I don't think I can claim the "traveler" mantle. Though I do manage to take a 3-5 day trip every month or so. I get to travel SO much more now that I have left the United States.

    I have found that I no longer feel a close kinship to "travelers" that come through town, but I do enjoy talking to them from time-to-time. Hooking into a small group of expat friends has been nice as well. I did not expect that as most expats are on average 20 to 30 years older than I. Mexico has many retired Canadian and American people living here. But once I found a few people closer to my age and with similar interests, it made a big difference for me.

    I hope you two keep blogging and traveling! I look forward to bumping into you on the road.

    - Ryan

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  2. @Ryan. I think the idea of living in a country long term such as what you are doing is also very appealing to us. We'd love to engage with locals on a long term basis.

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