You Can Fly Around the World and You’ll Still Be Boring

There’s nothing like travel to make a privileged person who’s never struggled feel like they’ve *had experiences* and *lived authentically.*I’m not the first person to mine this terrain for comedy gold. Oh my God do I not care about the fact that your physical person has been places mine hasn’t. How wonderful for you. You’re still not interesting.

Oh, you love to travel? I think that’s supposed to signal that you are open-minded and adventurous but all it says to me for certain is that you’ve staked your claim with an interest that is the blandest possible thing to like. Who doesn’t like travel? Do you also like food? Air?

Well, I don’t like travel. I don’t like customs, where I wait for my bag for 20 minutes, then get in a line that it turns out I could have been standing in while I waited for my bag, then stand there for 40 minutes. I hate almost everything about air travel. The million little inconvenient inefficiencies gall me, offend me to the core. I don’t like moving from one cramped space to another and schlepping bags makes my back hurt. I certainly don’t like paying a ton of money for shitty food. I CANNOT DEAL with how expensive beer is in airports. For the love of God at least let me be drunk for this hellish experience for less than $30.

AND YET, I went to Mexico weekend before last. And I had a wonderful time.

It’s embarrassing to admit how nervous I was about this trip. I am someone who with some regularity makes a plan to meet someone at Rustico on Tuesday at 6 pm and creates a calendar event for myself for Thursday. Being in the right place at the right time with the right items on hand seems like such a simple thing. And yet I find myself screwing it up over and over again. With travel, these kinds of mistakes are super inconvenient.

Knowing myself and my frailties, all travel stresses me out. But then add a new country with possible kidnapping and waterborne sickness, I could barely look forward to the trip.

But I went and didn’t get sick or kidnapped. I had a great time.

And then this week I am looking at this photo:

Which, despite, (or maybe because of) the fact that it is making fun of girls like me, elicited in me a legitimate longing to look at some fucking mountains. IRL.

Because, to quote Barbie “I just want to go on more adventures, be around good energy, connect with people, learn new things, grow.”

I’m not going to say I grew as a person by going to Mexico and not getting the shits. But I will say that as self-indulgence goes, travel is more fun than purses, if more stressful. I’m still not interesting. But if I’m going to be boring, I might as well do it in from of some beautiful mountains. Or sloths. Probably sloths next.