Wanderlust

When I first stumbled over Patrizia Schultz’s 2003 bestseller 1000 Places to Visit Before You Die I asked myself whether there are people out there, who have actually tried to reach the author’s attempted goal of visiting these 1000 places – I doubt it. And although I travel a lot and wish to travel even more when I’m done with my studies, I doubt that I will see even half of those places. However, this post is not about prototypical travel experiences and destinations, but more about the inner wish to leave behind an almost too familiar world and discover something completely new.

I believe the human urge to leave the places where we grew up and visit the most far away spots we can think of is quite natural and probably stems from our time as nomads (just guessing). Still, I think one has to distinguish clearly between people who like to travel and those who want to leave for a longer amount of time. I still remember the exact day when I first realized that I had to get out of my town of 1600 people. It was almost midnight on my 18th birthday. All my friends and guests had already left and I was kind of lonely. I was sitting in front of my computer, checking my empty email account for the fifth time in a row (Facebook hasn’t been popular back then). It was then that I realized I had to start something new, and the only thing I could think of was to somehow get out of town and my country altogether. A year later I was sitting on a plane which took me to the US where I then worked as an au-pair for a year.

What I was trying to get across with this little story of mine is not how sad and lonely I was when I made the decision to move away (although I probably was as my former boyfriend had just dumped me), but that the urge to leave is usually a sudden desire, which just like the need for a delicious cup of coffee, doesn’t leave your head until you’ve fulfilled it. The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw once wrote: “I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad”. To me, these nine words exactly describe why people find far away places more attractive than their familiar surroundings. It’s always the new, the different and the yet unknown that fascinates people. As soon as you feel at home the fascination decreases and you feel that you’re bound for somewhere else again.

Whenever I talk with people in my hometown about my wish to leave Austria again, I hear comments like: “You can only do that when you’re young”. But is it really a matter of age? I doubt it. In my opinion it’s just a matter of strong will but indeed, the opportunities to go abroad are endless especially for students. Websites like STATravel, or Abroad View offer Work and Study programs as well as Internships. For English students, for example, they have teaching programs in Chile, China or Guatemala. So if you also feel the urge to broaden your horizon by a year abroad check out these sites.

However, not every one seeks his fortune far away. A friend of mine, for instance, gets homesick as soon as she’s away from home for three days (no kidding). Sometimes the urge to come home is just as great as the urge to leave home. As Austrians love to say when they come back from a holiday: “Home is still the most beautiful place of all.”