People, Places, and Some Other Things

Have you ever professed your love of a specific place only to get a less-than-enthusiastic response from someone about the very same spot? 

I’ve heard it all: 

“Oh yeah I went but I got really sick there and didn’t get to enjoy myself.”
“The weather was just so terrible it was hard to see anything and we got really wet.”
“My wallet got stolen there so I don’t have good memories of it.”

While I can certainly relate to these sentiments, when I hear these phrases about places I love, I can’t help but be reminded of the important roles others play in our travel and adventure experiences, and how the quality of those relationships can make or break a place.

Back in 2015 I was lucky enough to spend 6 months living, studying, and travelling in India. When I look back on my time there, it’s memories like the one pictured above that stand out above all others: good friends sharing a laugh in a wildly diverse and unfamiliar place.

 India wasn’t all rainbows and jungle roads. About a month in, on my very first weekend trip away from Delhi - my home away from home at the time - I had all of my important belongings stolen. Yep, you got it: Money. Passport. Wallet. All gone. At the peak of my stress levels on the Day of Thieves, a few friends and I were taking a rickshaw ride to the local police station. I remember looking out onto the road thinking, “it’s going to be a long day” when all of a sudden a cow slid up beside the open air car and took the biggest doo-doo I have ever seen in my life – right in front of our faces. After that, laughter ensued between us for about 20 minutes, I borrowed money from a friend for a few days, and we happily continued our trip.

 Of course, my lost passport etc. was just the beginning of strife in that wonderful country. Countless instances of the infamous Delhi belly put me in 2 or 3 different hospitals for dehydration during my stay. Next, during a trek in the Garwhal Himalayas (link here), I found out on the first day of a weeklong, cell service-less hike, that my grandma had had a heart attack back in Canada and the odds weren’t looking so good. Finally, just in time for some much-anticipated travel at the end of my school term, I spent 3 weeks in the hospital after being diagnosed with meningitis (spinal tap in a foreign country, anyone?!).

 You might be thinking this all sounds like a bit of a nightmare, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t at times. Despite all that though, I still look back on those memories with smiling reverence almost entirely because of the people who surrounded me. I never went a day in the hospital without a visitor, or a night on the trail without someone asking how I was feeling about being away from my family. Everything that could have made for a dismal trip seemed to melt away with the loving connections I had in those friends. The scary experiences became ones of transformation and laughter.

I saw this pattern again this past year during time I spent living in Banff National Park. Heartache was a part-time reality for many of my chosen-family there: breakups, financial stress, family issues, even freak accidents. And it all came to an apex for me with the sudden loss of my Dad in August. Still though, I look back on that time in my life with gratitude and love in my heart because of the people that helped hold each other up through it all.

 While cliché, the notion that “it’s not where you are, but whom you’re with” is what made the difference between loving a place or leaving it behind in all of my travels. Connections come before the aesthetic of place, and they continue after tragedy and bad luck occur.

So what can be learned from this tried and true proverb besides the obvious? For me, next time I begin to build a negative tone or experience in a place, I will look at who is (or is not) around me before assessing what is going on. Support systems are key, no matter the locale.

Travellers, adventurers, and outdoorspeople: they all have a funny way of meeting up eventually. Getting after it becomes getting connected to each other in one way or another.  The wrong place at the wrong time may just be the wrong people at the right time. If you’re not with your right people, keep turning corners and riding waves because eventually they will be there, with open arms, waiting to take on the trials and tribulations of Anywhere with you.