Travel Means:
"Exploring My Own Backyard"
At our year end celebration last year my company asked its employees about some of our greatest travel adventures, our favorite destinations, our coolest pictures but the most thought provoking question they asked was “What does travel mean to you?“. I work in travel. I write about my travels. I spend all my free time traveling. I obviously very much love travel but I had never thought about what it meant to me. Listening to all the remarkable answers of my colleagues made me realize that travel can mean so much to so many people in so many different ways. The idea that travel can take many forms and meanings inspired me to do a series on what travel means to me, to my friends, to my family, to my coworkers, to strangers and I’m hoping somewhere along the way it’ll connect to what it means to you.
You’d think I would start with what travel meant to me, but alas, I’m still working that out in my head. Instead, I’m starting with my favorite answer on that slideshow from one my coworkers. She said, “Travel means exploring my own backyard”. That made me take a pause and think. I always had this notion that traveling is about going some where far away and seeing all the sights, eating new foods and trying to make sense of a whole other culture.
And then I realized something kind of crazy. Though I’ve lived my entire life within a 45 minute radius of NYC, and even consider it my home, I couldn’t say I’d seen all the major sights. I definitely have not eaten all the yummy food and every borough in NYC has it’s own culture but I barely know anything about Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx or Staten Island (if I must include it). I had never even done the basics of what I consider traveling, in my own city!
Sometimes we forget how much there is in our familiar space, and how much we stopped paying attention to. I’ve always thought that since I lived so close I would get around to it, but then life happened, and I never got around to it. Hell, I even lived on the same block as the Empire State Building for an entire year and never made it inside. This year I decided I wanted to listen to the wise words of my coworker and find the joy and beauty that is all around me.
It took me 27 years but I can finally say I have been to the top of the Empire State building, Top of the Rock and the observatory at 1 World Trade. I have now been to all 5 boroughs, not just driven through them. I’ve seen broadway shows and comedy shows in between drinks at speakeasies and dive bars. I’ve taken the subway, the bus, the ferry, the path, metro north, LIRR, NJ transit, cabs and once even a citi bike. I’ve eaten food straight off street carts and sat for meals at fancy steakhouses. The best part of it all though, is that there is still so much left for me to be excited by and it feels like I’ve had my eyes opened to a whole world of adventure that’s always at my fingertips.
I know I might be the anomaly to most people, getting to live near a major city, but no matter where you are there’s somewhere left to uncover. Maybe it’s your small town history museum you never bothered to go into, or a winding hiking trail that always seemed just a little too far out of the way or a restaurant you often walk by but still have no idea what cuisine it even is. Discovering something new in the city you’ve lived in your whole life can fill you with the same feelings of exhilaration and delight as doing something similar in a city 1000 miles away.
So if you’re a little strapped for cash, time off of work, or you just need a tiny dose of that electric feeling travel gives you, then I encourage you to explore your backyard and I’d love to hear what you stumble upon.
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