Why is travel the holy grail? Are OEs really so meaningful? Jess Freeman reflects on her flightless path.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler, or read on.
When I was first asked to write about travel, my stomach dropped. I’ve hardly been anywhere. I had no idea what to say. The only experiences I have with travelling are:
- A couple of times during high school.
- The research trip I did at Uni.
- One stock-standard tourist trip to Australia that every New Zealander takes at some point in their life.
Nothing very exciting. Nothing life changing. Actually, the main thing that does come to mind when I think about travelling is the insane amount of debt I am in from that one big trip that I did actually go on. My stomach drops even more when I think about repaying my grandparents for that.
So I'm definitely New Zealand bound for a while yet.
I’m 26 now. I’m at the age when most of my friends have done one of two things:
- Settled down, moved to the suburbs, and started working their way up the career ladder.
- Or, more commonly, they’ve jumped on a plane, sticking two fingers out the airplane window and got the hell out of Lower Hutt. Off to that greener grass.
I picture those ones off on the plane and in my head they all have really stylish hard luggage cases with wheels. The expensive kind. With really tall handles that don’t make you hunch your back. They stand tall and proud, just like my friends are as they stroll through Heathrow airport. They do amazing exotic things wearing sundresses and cool sandals; their hair is shining and beautiful in wonderful foreign sunlight as they eat tapas for dinner.
They do amazing exotic things wearing sundresses and cool sandals; their hair is shining and beautiful in wonderful foreign sunlight as they eat tapas for dinner.
Meanwhile I’m just sitting here, looking out my office window in drizzly Wellington wondering what I’m going to make for dinner. Because chicken was on special again. So we've got chicken again. We have chicken every week. I need to be more adventurous with how I cook chicken. God, I am in such a chicken rut. I think one of my daughter’s first words was chicken.
Travel is a rite of passage. It’s what you DO. You go to school, you get your degree, and then apparently you move home to live with your parents while you save up to go to London for a few years. For no particular reason other than to “experience it”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, it's a fine plan.
It’s good that people aspire to do something other than stay in their hometown all their lives. Only LOSERS never go anywhere right? You need to go out and experience the world. Take a month to tour around Peru and wear colourful woollen capes. Go to India and eat a real curry in a village somewhere. Go to Morocco and ride a camel. Whatever the hell you want to do, you can do it – as long as you’re financially healthy.
So what about those of us who are left behind? The plebs who haven’t been to travel heaven? Those of us who, for a variety of reasons, travel isn’t possible. Or even – and I know this is the case for some people even though it is SO uncool to admit it – travel isn’t what they want? These days, it feels a safer bet to say ‘I’m not actually a fan of rugby’ than it is to say ‘You know, I’m actually not that keen on travelling right now.’ The latter sends you into a spiral of social rejection where you swear never to admit that ever again. You just make up lies the next time it comes up in conversation and start a prepared speech about how you're saving up for a life changing Contiki tour and can’t wait to ride around on an abused animal somewhere in southeast Asia.
I’ve got a pretty good reason for staying put. I’ve got 2 kids. 2 and a half and 10 months. And I love them and I adore them, but cleaning crayons off walls and wiping baby shit off my carpet is not exactly cocktails in Croatia.
A disclaimer before I continue please, can you all just believe me wholeheartedly when I say this. I love my kids. I love my family. I love being a mum and I honestly will do anything for my kids and my family. However, for this story to work and flow I need to not apologise for the things I am about to say. This is not a story about regret or some kind of “take your birth control or you will end up like me” story.
My kids; they’re young, day care is expensive, and so are clothes and nappies and food and a mortgage and life insurance and health insurance and car seats and parking tickets and petrol and different types of cleaning products for all the scenarios I come across and all that other mundane stuff that you have to spend money on as an adult. So there are my reasons. Kids and money. And even if I had the money, I don't even have any leave available, because my 4 weeks of annual leave always gets used up as sick leave, because day cares are disgusting and my oldest will put anything she finds on the street in her mouth if I'm not quick enough. She loves moss and stones and you can only let them “build their immunity” up to a point.
I'm not sad about my reasons - I love my life and what I do. I actually even really like my job. But, it was hard to accept when friends started leaving one by one to go try new things, see new places and cultures and get those awesome stories. Then that slow trickle of departures turned into a fully-fledged flood. I was sad because my friends were leaving, and I was sad because I could not go with them. Five years ago, my kids were no more than eggs in my ovaries and I hadn't even met their dad yet. Back then, I did imagine myself in a flash studio loft in London, taking weekend trips to Europe, and every once in a while experiencing a new continent. I wanted Safaris in Africa and terracotta statues in Asia, hot dogs in America - mind you I didn't really have a plan to pay for all of that... But taking an OE, or moving away, or even just taking regular vacations – travel is such a defining thing you do. It speaks volumes about a person, what they choose to do. And it’s so expected of you now.
I did imagine myself in a flash studio loft in London, taking weekend trips to Europe, and every once in a while experiencing a new continent. I wanted Safaris in Africa and terracotta statues in Asia, hot dogs in America.
And to make it worse, social media for me is now like a pamphlet in a travel agency; apart from I can’t burn it in a fit of rage without having to do an insurance claim for a new laptop. Even my grandparents on all sides are travelling the world nearly constantly. My partner, bless him, went to London in his twenties, partied hard for a few years, travelled around and then finally when they all got evicted from their flat he decided it was time to go home. He was spaced out on god knows what on his flights home and ended up with five stopovers on the way back to New Zealand. He didn’t have a damn clue where he was or what he was doing. His travel, his OE, is such a big part of him and who he is.
He would not be the person he is now if he hadn’t done coke in London and jumped off statues in Spain and lived in a shitty flat while at the same time going out on weekends to see beautiful castles and towers. I love his stories about his time away. My afore mentioned grandparents have way cooler stories in their sixties than I do. And my best friend has travelled so much; she is an actress and champion marcher (yes, marching girl. They take amazing trips). She's also loaded, so that helps.
She's done amazing things in amazing places. Every year she goes to multiple destinations. Some of them are Oamaru, so, yeah take it or leave it (nothing against Oamaru, it's pretty but it doesn't make me seethe with jealousy when she posts a Facebook status from there). But she can chime into so many stories with "oh yeah when I was in Turkey last year" or "I loved Edinburgh more the second time I went there". We all know these people. You may even be one of those people.
Stop and think about the people you know, and think about what they’ve done when they’ve gone away. Did they pack up and ship off with no plans? Sell their shit and go to South America? Or perhaps they went to Italy but like not to that touristy area, they actually lived in the area where all the locals lived and like totally spoke Italian 24/7 and got accepted by the locals as a true Italian soul, and like would definitely not eat Parmesan unless it's aged for at least five years or something. Or maybe they’ve gone to some mediocre town in the UK to work a mediocre job and do mediocre things, but they are not doing that mediocre stuff in New Zealand, so it’s OK.
Whatever they choose to do, it’s such a good reflection of who they are. Maybe you'll know someone who went away on a trip and it was totally life changing and they came back a completely different person. You know the ones, the ones who are really quiet and sensible but then go live in fucking Thailand or something and rescue elephants from war torn areas or some really shallow ditzy girl that you didn't give too much moral credit to ends up living in Costa Rica teaching English to orphans and picking plastic up off the beach on the weekends.
They all end up being so worldly and transform themselves somehow.
My one thing I did was go to Greece for six weeks on a research trip for university. I studied Classics. We went over to study and present research on a range of archaeological sites. We travelled all around and looked at these amazing ruins, some of them just dirt and stones and others completely breath-taking structures that you just can’t believe are so old. I LOVE that! It’s my thing. I love old stuff. But we also got completely trolleyed every night for six weeks and visited most of those ruins with a pretty bad hangover, and the bus definitely had to stop regularly for puke breaks, and I fell down the stairs at a bar drunk as hell and had my arm in a sling for a couple of weeks.
I don’t share this with you to impress you with my drunken stories, because we’re old enough now that it doesn’t impress anyone any more, but rather to just to fully inform you of my travel experience.
I don’t share this with you to impress you with my drunken stories, because we’re old enough now that it doesn’t impress anyone anymore, but rather to just to fully inform you of my travel experience. You ask anyone, “What does Jess like? How would you sum her up?” They’ll say “She likes old things and she likes to drink.” That’s what I did. It’s me. It’s so personal and when you get to talking to someone you don’t know very well, it’s always one of those topics that comes up – where have you been and what did you do? How many places have you gone?
And it’s true, going out and experiencing the world is an incredible thing. You will gain so much from it. But I can’t help but think that my generation looks at saving up, buying a ticket, and going to a different place as some kind of life changing holy grail.
We rely so heavily on our travel experiences to define ourselves.
So how do you define yourself when you've had a couple of small holidays a few years ago and now you're settled down at home?
What if the next exciting holiday you will have will be an overnight stay in the Wairarapa in January?
How do you find or define yourself as an adult? There's this bizarre expectation that you won't really be an adult and you won't know what you really want from life until you've experienced life somewhere else. I understand how people can accidentally get stuck in this mentality. Even I had that belief myself for so long. But to be honest, I can’t help but find that so insulting now. Just a few years ago, I'm positive you would have heard me quoting "I don't know why anyone would want to stay in this city for their whole life.” Well, surprise, past Jess!
But that's actually alright with me now. Wellington is amazing. It has good schools, I live right by the beach in a nice suburb, I'm five minutes’ drive from work and five minutes’ walk to bars, restaurants and shops, parks for the kids, what's not to like?! You're all here, you must like Wellington too, unless you're too poor to leave. Although, according to past Jess and many actual people presently of that belief, I’m an idiot. I’m happy to settle for mediocrity and a boring suburban life, and I'm an uncultured fucking hick because I haven't been to Italy yet. “You haven’t been? Even though you studied all of that Roman stuff? You really have to SEE Pompeii to appreciate it.” Uh yeah, well, my A grades in Roman Art & Archaeology beg to differ, thanks for your concern about my lack of culture though.
I was watching House Husbands the other night, because apparently it's mandatory when you're a parent that the TV is permanently on channel 1 even though you have Sky. There’s a scenario on the show where a guy who has three kids from a previous relationship, proposes to his girlfriend who lives with him and raises his kids with him. Shock horror - the whole goddamn story was literally about everyone telling her that she needs to go out, and go to South America for a bit of travel. You know, to make sure it's “really what she wants!” She’s told to hold off on getting married until after she travels because... wait for it… she's 26 and TURNING INTO A TIRED HOUSEWIFE.
How fucking terrible, I mean, don't settle down with these kids and man you love just yet because YOU HAVEN'T EXPERIENCED THE WORLD YET. How do you even know if you love him or those kids? Seriously. I mean obviously you guys. Like, how else can you decide if you love and want to marry someone until you’ve been bike riding on the new and improved tourist paths of death road in Bolivia, whilst eating a traditional vegan quinoa burrito. You need to experience some of that real shit before you could ever make a decision about your current life that is literally right there in front of you. No one has the ability to make a life decision without having seen a giraffe in a different country to your own. Give me a BREAK. The worst thing was, she came back and literally this is how the scene went:
“Hey Justin! Missed you! So glad you bought me that ticket to Argentina. Thanks for paying for that.”
“Cause yeah, like, I'm just not ready for this. We can still be mates though right?”
SHE ACTUALLY SAID THAT.
Listen. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go travelling before you get married. Do whatever you want. Travel whenever or wherever you want. But really? Are people really believing this mentality…? It was NOT the trip to Argentina that made her realise she didn’t want to get married. That, in my opinion, is just a very very expensive and time consuming exercise for something far more simple.
The reason she didn’t get married is because she already knew she didn’t want to get married before she left. She just needed a change. Some time away. Just some time by herself. Time to reflect in order to come to that realisation. For example, if she knew that she really wanted to marry this guy, she would have probably said something more like ‘“let’s go on this trip together because I like hanging out with you so much.” or “ Please don’t pay for me to go to Argentina, we need that money for the wedding.” It’s fine to take time and reflect before you make life decisions but do you really need to go to Argentina to do that? Did the local Argentinean cuisine change your mind? Or was it the scenery? It’s bullshit.
This episode of House Husbands really struck a chord with me.
And that’s definitely not something 2009 Jess thought that 2015 Jess was ever going to say…
But it really did. You can probably tell by the fact that I’m writing this story for a start. Also, this episode brought to light such a personal internal battle I've been fighting over the last few years.
Who am I, if I haven't travelled?
Does that mean I'm actually not fully developing as a citizen of the world? Who am I without these experiences that my peers are having? What do people think of me? What will I be in the future if I don't go and travel at this crucial intersection in my life? It's a bloody mid mid life crisis!
My partner Marty, who is a goddamn saint by the way despite what I said about his time in London, has mentioned a few times that most of his circle of friends were in London at one time or another except for a few. Interesting things arose out of that, like the "left behind" friends meet the new friends when they come back to NZ and get married. I always fixated on that part - just the few friends who stayed in New Zealand, carried on with their lives and then all their old friends came back a few years later having had this huge experience and they did what? Hung out in Wellington, kids, job, what did they do? How weird would that be, to just be one of the couple of people left behind while your whole other circle of friends moves away?
Oh wait! That sounds familiar! That’s me. It's not that weird. You still have a life. You still have goals, motivations, daily routines - exactly the same as the people "over there", wherever there is. If someone goes on a huge exotic holiday every year and does all these super cool things with their super cool luggage cases and their super big wallets, they are still a person who sits on the toilet every day and goes for a dump and sometimes they argue with their girlfriend or get a parking ticket and they really just do live pretty much the same life as people who haven't. Those of us who haven't travelled really put those who have on a pedestal because we really are insanely jealous, and we really do have nightmares about stamp-less passports when we are 45.
I was skyping a friend of mine who has left New Zealand for what was originally a year and is now indefinitely. She made a good point to me that it's not all roses, they don't post or tweet about the nights in eating pasta alone because they don't have many new friends yet and how being in a new city can be incredibly daunting and the whole experience can be just really overwhelming sometimes. I started to reply "at least you're doing it and you've got the chance to do these things" but I stopped and thought - oh my god. You know what this means? Both of us, both of our actions and experiences, they will all be both negative and positive and all totally valid.
She's not a better person than me because she's travelled. I’m not a loser because I haven’t. Past Jess was so wrong, and that creeping worm of a thought that I'm not going to be a real adult until I've ticked off at least 10 things from my world map wish list is so stupid. We all just do stuff that makes us happy. Look at Alice! Part of the 10% Staying behind here in Wellington and a goddamn Billy T Nominee. Look at me! 26 with an awesome family and job.
Whatever experiences we have will all shape our lives and the people we are, and the fact that I am not currently living in another country and have not yet even taken many holidays is neither here nor there. I'm not missing a part of me just because I am missing out on a few stamps in my passport. Would I still like those experiences? Yes. Yes I would. But it will be different than I imagined, and it will be different than what most of my friends are doing or have done. That applies to everyone. Travelling or not travelling, the experiences you have in life are what shape you to become who you are. The way you imagine your future shaping out is always going to change. Just, so long as you are actually bothering to imagine what your future looks like at all, then you’re off to a good start.
Who am I if I haven’t travelled? I’m Jess.
Who am I if I have travelled? I’m still Jess.
Whether I’m Jess standing on the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. Or whether I’m Jess standing in the aisles of Countdown, holding my kid on a leash so she doesn’t run off and hide in the paper towels again, trying to choose the cheapest but also low calorie and low sodium sweet chilli sauce in a humble attempt to try and spice up the chicken I am making for dinner, yet again. I’m experiencing things and I’m becoming the person that I have become and then the person I will go on to be. Regardless of whether I took a jet plane to get there or not.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Sarah Larnach
This content is brought to you with funding support from NZ On Air.
