Road To Nowhere: Travelling Isn't A Necessity

I’m not much of a traveller, in fact I’m quite an avid NON traveller. I don’t like to go in cars, I’ve never been on a plane, I’ve been abroad twice and both times were awful and very short. I’m just not cut out for it. I never had the wanderlust people speak of. At times I felt like maybe I should, there were always people around me jetting off on adventures, but I never quite got it together. I’m fascinated by cultures and geography, archeology and architecture. I would love to go to a handful of places and drink them all in. Japan is top of the fantasy list, Iceland comes a firm second, and after that there’s a smattering of places I’d love to go...if I had it in me! For a long time I thought it was laziness and lack of funds, but really it’s fear that holds me back. I think I’m basically very risk averse. I’ve only fully worked that out in the last few years. I had some inheritance, thought I’d be able to do amazing things, long term things, things that might safely see me through, investments and money makers, learn to drive, buy a truck and get out on the road. Turns out I’m far too scared to make that leap! And it made me realise that this is actually my default setting. It’s why I’ve had a fairly long term relationship with anxiety, it’s why I doubt myself a lot of the time, it's why I don't travel.

Maybe the world should travel less, the pandemic has certainly given old Mother Earth a bit of a breather and it’s benefited from a lot less fossil fuel burning planes, trains and automobiles. And ships. And big businesses, factories, plants, etc. My green credentials are pretty good, I cycle almost everywhere, rarely leave the city. The fact I've never flown anywhere is a strange thing to be proud of, but I am. Despite getting TWO provisional licences through my life I still never quite managed to get up the nerve to learn to drive. But...if I really want to and didn’t freak out at the thought of it, I probably would go places. The fear affords me a little smugness naturally.

The internet has been an amazing resource, I’m able to look at all kinds of things I would have had to travel thousands of miles to see...or be subjected to someone’s slideshow after their amazing trip to Indiaahhh! My brother travelled, my sisters too, my Mum never did much but when she was 60 she went to India for 6 months. We were all a bit surprised. She spent a lot of her trip staying with my sister who was living and working there at the time. She saw the Taj Mahal, met cows every day, experienced street kids hassling her for money, saw the beautiful pink buildings, palaces, the wonderful landscapes, the people, the colours and light! She spent a bit of time in Goa. She had the most amazing time...but she said when she got back, that’s it, I’ve done that now! I’m a lot like my Mum, but not nearly as brave.

There’s also the added potential freakout situation of BUGS! Other countries' wildlife seems to be BIGGER and POISONOUS! I have a hard enough time dealing with the stinging giants and horrible moths of England!

Mum at The Taj Mahal (Mum’s photo collection)

Many people fear the travelling bit but enjoy the holiday once they get there. They work hard to overcome their fears, work through their panic and enjoy the rewards. I’ve a feeling I’m only likely to be half like that, the other half feeling a sense of rising panic wash over me every now and then and never fully able to relax and enjoy myself. Even on the occasional day trips I’ve felt this sense of low level anxiety and it kinda spoils it. Even though I enjoy being out of the city, somewhere new, or somewhere old like my family home, I can’t fully relax. Ultimately...east, west, home’s best! I know so many people who have been all over the world, short holidays, long trips, many lived and worked abroad in all kinds of amazing places. Japan, America, Australia, India, Canada, Africa and, erm, New Zealand. Why do so many countries end in *a*? (look it up, it’s actually pretty boring) I admire them, their sheer guts and purpose. I’m a little bit jealous really, but I try to be happy with my lot. It’s no good spending time wishing you were other people, that’s a very unhealthy way to go about things. But I do wish I wasn’t so scared. My brushes with travel are tiny, nanoscopically so. I went to Boulogne on a school trip when I was about 13. A coach to Dover with a bunch of girls, oh the fun (not fun). Then a puky ferry over the choppy sea. We went to practice our French in the shops and markets. God it was awful. The shopkeepers were obviously fed up with coach loads of school kids turning up with their shitty, lazy French. No doubt ALL asking the same thing over and over. “Avez-vous dû pain s'il vous plaît Monsieur?” Quite a lot of them refused to speak in their native tongue to us. Some played ball though and were patient and kind. It was just a day trip so it was quite frantic, up before it got light and onto the coach outside the school, all groaning, waving off our aggravated parents. I remember buying a cheap necklace off a man in the outdoor market for my Mum and felt, for a moment or two, very sophisticated and European. Très chic peut-être!My next trip was a little longer, a little further, and as a grown up, almost. I was 25. My boyfriend and I woke up one Thursday morning and pondered what we might do that day, he said “Let’s go to France, I’ve got an Uncle in Lyon!” I thought this was a very exciting idea, so we went to the post office to get a travel visa, you could in those days if you didn’t have a passport, I’ve never had a passport. There was this mad deal on, day trips across to France for a quid, so we packed one bag, badly, and left. By nightfall we’d not got very far and we spent a horrible rainy night on a roundabout in Reading! My boyfriend was a rather eccentric fellow. Next day we made it to Dover, we were exhausted. I begged him to let us stay in a B&B for the night, it was cheap, £13, even in 1993 that was a red flag price tag! Pink nylon sheets that sparked, the sink was so close to the bed you had to sort of climb over it, but we had a BED!!!

Next night he went across on a normal ticket, put our bag in a locker, came back and then we both went on the day trip ticket for a quid each. Ludicrous! I spent a very long night on the floor of the ferry port with quite a lot of other people, it was scary, cold, hard and really odd. Every time someone moved I would jump, it was hard to get a quiet spot. It reminded me of a very short spell of homelessness I’d experienced so it’s no surprise I didn’t view it as the fun caper my boyfriend did! Next morning after 10 million fitful hours I was rescued and the ferry was a great relief after that awful experience.

So 3 days down and we weren’t even in France yet! The adventure was only just beginning. We arrived feeling a little windswept and nauseous, we stumbled out of the ferry port and started to hitch. Edges of towns, loads of fields, classic avenues of tall pointy trees which I always associate with France. It was rather gruelling with not much stuff, no tent, not even sleeping bags, little money and heavy army boots! We spent one night in a little forest...we’d been to a village to buy some supplies and off we popped. We laid down some grass on the floor, cosied up, drank our horrible and horribly cheap wine, ate bread and cheese and eventually went to sleep! When we woke up in the morning neither of us could move, we were freaked OUT! I thought we’d been bitten by something in the night, paralysed, our bones would be found in years to come with two empty plonk bottles and an antique backpack! After half an hour of trying not to freak out we started to feel our legs again. I blame it on the cheap wine and the hard, gnarly forest floor!

We gathered ourselves and went to the road and stuck our thumbs out again. One of our lifts was with a woman and three children in the car, half 11 at night. She was so kind. They insisted we stayed and set up a tent in their garden, gave us use of their bathroom, fed us a lovely big meal and waved us off again. What an amazing experience. This though was my ONE good travelling story. We were in Mont St Elois, a rather magical place. We investigated the old abbey, there was a horse wandering about, another brief magical moment before the gruelling travel began again. We never made it to Lyon, we barely made it past Lille. We’d had enough, turned round, came back home again. So...you can probably understand why I’m a bit ambivalent about travel.

A little holiday pal I made down at Eastville Lake, Bristol. ©VCP

I do go on mini holidays, on my bike, for a couple of hours in the woods or parks or fields around the city. I try roads I’ve never been down before, a sense of adventure and the potential for getting lost, new vistas and faces. There are still a lot of places I haven't been to in Bristol. And after 28 years in the place, that’s pretty amazing. I get a sense of escape, I feel like I’ve been somewhere. I also feel like this is a tiny taste of what I’m missing out on and really wish I could overcome my fears.

Sometimes as I get closer to all the green, the fields and woods, the soft ground underfoot, the wide open spaces I can feel a little frisson of excitement, and maybe a bit of the old nerves too, and I enjoy the good feeling it gives me. I feel lifted, relaxed and happy. I try to make myself sit with those feelings for a while, I’m not very good at sitting still so it’s a good thing to practice. I often take my camera with me so it’s an opportunity to work on landscape and wildlife photography, not my usual style. It’s a nice distraction, it gives the trip purpose. Then I start to wend my way home again and as I reach the city I start to feel downhearted, the grey brings me down, the chaos and noise, smells and cars, people, so many people.

I can really understand the benefits of a proper amount of time away from it all in a nice quiet space. The ideal holiday for me, if I could overcome my fears, would be a cottage by the sea, very close to a quiet beach with lots of big rocks, cliff edges, wild birds screeching. This would be very close to a seaside town with a pier and penny arcade crammed with holiday makers so I could take a crazy day trip there on my bike. I imagine this all by myself as I often am, but it would be nice with friends. Sharing shopping and cooking duties, playing games, swimming in the sea. Just for a week, maybe two, nothing too grand. Sounds almost doable...you never know!

Written by Vonalina Cake

“My name is Von, I’ve lived in Bristol since 1992 and I’ve lived a lot of lives since then.”