Category: Voyage Journal

Travel is a beautiful thing. It opens up a new mindset and perspective towards just life, period. For different people, it means different things. Some for pleasure while others for business. For travelers like myself and those who travel religiously and long for it constantly, we continuously strive to get out and explore. In short we are “Wanderlusts”. They say “Travel once a year to a new place”. This may seem difficult for many to accomplish as there are many obstacles such as: planning, costs, how safe it will be, ethnic differences, currency, internet service, blah blah. It can boil down to be incredibly intimidating to the average person and they will look away to an the easier trip domestically or an All-Inclusive somewhere. However, although some may have fallen into committed travel on accident, for me and the travelers I have met, it has evolved in some form, short or long term.

Travel for me has not only changed itself but also changed me as a whole. It had opened up a new positive perspective on things. The simple fact that there is a whole new world out there. America is a vast country, but in comparison to the world it is still a small percentage in regards to culture and landscape. Traveling began in my diaper days when my grandmother hooked the family up with occasionally free or discounted tickets to Puerto Rico, 50% of what I am, Puerto Rican. It was of the norm to have year in advance plans to return for one to up to three weeks in the San Juan beach side. At some point prior to my birth, my family had lived there. During my infanthood and up to my early teens, Puerto Rico was an annual summer destination through a bowling tournament and party of up to 50 people that would go once a year during the summer. Although a commonwealth of the United States with no requirement of passports and documentation, the island has a pretty well preserved latino culture. We usually would stay along the beach in a nice hotel, visit the interior and mountains once each time for a large picnic with salsa music and good food, and visit the colonial San Juan forts.

The island of my other half, Dominican Republic is another destination I have been to a number of times. Well, twice to be exact opposed to Puerto Rico. Here host not only my first time abroad but first time into what would be considered 3rd world or simply an impoverished country. In the Dominican Republic, I saw true poverty firsthand with more homeless people I had ever seen. Tin shacks not so neatly set on multiple terrains while we back home complain about room size and space. I’ve seen naked children without shoes roaming the islands backwoods before approaching secluded beaches. Potholes every several feet on the road while Dominicans continue there focused gameplay of Dominoes on the side of the road. Here is also where I’ve gotten the taste of what an all-inclusive resort is all about, the exact opposite of what I just finished explaining.

Since my last travels to these island I culturally call home, I have been to various parts of the American west, Canada, Cayman Islands, Mexico, Bermuda, Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, and Guatemala. Not too far away from home but enough places to get a sense of cultural diversity. This year, my little sister will graduate High School in preparation for college and alike my post college gift of traveling to Miami and the Florida Keys, my family chose to return to the Dominican Republic for the third time to celebrate her successes. As for Puerto Rico, the cost for a trip there is cheap with no international fees, numerous timeshares we own as a family for lodging as well as some family located on the island. I would love to go with my family, spend quality time with them and test my improved Spanish. There are many more places in Puerto Rico I would love to venture off to aside from San Juan and the common places. So why not return? Why don’t I wish to return for a newer travel experience? Due to something I like to call “Travel Discipline”. This is me browsing for my next new destination opposed to returning to a place I’ve already been to such as the Dominican Republic and especially Puerto Rico since it has been so long. It has been 10 plus years since Puerto Rico but even some parts of Jamaica I would love to return to like Negril. It not so much the place but the experience and the newer perspective that makes the trip so different.

While most don’t have the fortunes to travel, others have found the way or better off already have the career to travel without barriers such as PTO, time off, and work restrictions. Me, I am fortunate to even have the opportunity to travel about 3.5 weeks out of the year opposed to the average american 2 weeks. Do not get me wrong when I say I am grateful to even have the cash flow to travel. However, there is too much browsing and not enough traveling. I spend countless minutes, hours, and days at an office desk exploring new places via Google Panoramio, Instagram, and Pinterest. But the traveling is at a far too slow rate. A little over a year ago, I craved to visit Aruba and Curacao and I am just now visiting the islands in this coming May. At the time, I was craving a trip to Canada which was this past October but preparing a trip to Bermuda that January and Belize for that May, which I had desired a year prior. While I await my next trip, I crave travel to much of Europe, South East Asia, S. America, and Africa. Confusing but the pattern is pretty obvious. My traveling is not up to par with my rapid urges for travel and I crave for spontaneity over planning.

Working two jobs makes saving so much easier but traveling while doing so is no easy task. Hence why I travel every several months but merely have to beg for it and accrue time off. When I do travel, its painful to meet other travelers from places like The Netherlands, Australia, and Germany who get to travel long term at a little more ease. This is my passion, why continue to suffer all of this and spend 19/20th of my time working hard to get such short amount of time away. This is why I never return anywhere because there is no room for those places. There barely is any for even the new destinations! There are so many people out there jobless as I was about two years ago. Struggling for stability and being able to stand on my feet. Not exactly a place I want to be at again. However, on the opposite side of that spectrum, I find myself waiting for the day I quit my jobs, set off on a long rewarded long term trip, educate myself within our complex world, return a culture rich person and possibly start over the cycle to prepare myself for more global education; that is if I do return.

So as much as I wish to return to some places and relive or recreate old memories, I balance it out and choose a new destination and make quick trips a few times a year. If I could find a way to travel for work or pursue a career that I would enjoy to see this world, I would. If I could spend half the time I use fantasizing the web on destinations being in a relevant career, I’d be on it in a heartbeat. I just don’t know where to start nor what to do. They say you have all the time in the world to travel later one. I tell them the time is now, so do it now. That adventurous energetic youth only happens once for the most part. At some point we all get tired and I do not want it to be “too late”. If I made a way to get on my feet to travel like I have been, I will find a way to make travel a larger part of my life to allow me to not only see the world but recreate great memories lived in places such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.