The art of travelling to escape the real world
I can hear seagulls crying. A football ricochets off the side of a yellow building. There’s an elderly couple watching from above, wrapped in coats and scarves. My arms are bare, burning slightly, and I do not know the football teams. This is not my home.
There’s an art to staying on the move: don’t settle long enough to let it become too real. The longest I have stayed put was from birth to the age of nine. At nine, we sailed around the world. At 16, we relocated 600 miles north. Now, at 22, I’m pretending that Barcelona is home for six months. And you know what? It’s great.
My life here is not real. I don’t know my neighbours, I can’t have a conversation in the supermarket, and my visa is creeping closer and closer to expiration every day. The world I have built in Catalonia is temporary and fragile, and it is this that affords me mental freedom. How can I be anxious about my outfit, my accent, my hair, when no one here will remember me come June? How can I be concerned about my classes when the professors don’t know my last name, and the grades don’t transfer home? This city of sun has become an escape from all that normally harrows me.
If I were relocating here permanently, this freedom would be temporary. I am sure I would be wrecked with stress over permanent language barriers, when I should use Spanish or Catalan, finding jobs and friends and hobbies to really build a long-term life. And so by staying still, the stresses creep back in. To me, real life is greatly similar to a certain internet-famous immortal snail. If I just keep moving, surely it can’t catch me…right?
Travel is, of course, not stress-free. Airports, buses, luggage, languages; they all come with their own individual concerns, yet they are temporary attacks of anxiety. Hot rooms, too many layers, strange foods, unfamiliar routines – all fleeting, as the adjustment period (for me, maybe three to four days) fades away and you tentatively find your feet. This is the start of the sweet spot. You find favourite restaurants, the perfect 5k route, and the patch of the beach that holds the sun for the most time. You miss home. You make friends, and put the world right over a coffee. You live as a new version of yourself. And the key ingredient of this happiness: you book a flight to the next escape.
Am I running away? Perhaps. No, not perhaps – most definitely. I’m running away from the constraints of modern society that crush my soul, that make me want to hide in my bed and never emerge. No, I do not want a stable job, thank you. You won’t catch me dead in a nine-to-five, I’m afraid. Adult responsibilities can bugger off until they are completely, objectively, inescapably necessary. The snail will not catch me until I reach out and touch it.
Sure, I have a drastically fluctuating income. The restaurants I spoke about are a rare treat – it’s more likely that I’ll have a cheese sandwich on the beach. But it is the cheese sandwich of freedom. It’s the sandwich of anti-capitalism. It’s the sandwich of defiance and an endless desire to be young and free and not let adulthood force me into an office.
This is not my real world, but it is the real world of the residents, and I feel especially lucky to be privy to their way of life. It is a powerful privilege to experience new cultures. We are extremely lucky in our part of the world to have the passports that we hold (yes, even post-Brexit), with so many amazing countries on our doorsteps, and to have access to the education that allows us to act responsibly and respectfully abroad. There’s a line between enjoying a new city and acting like a disrespectful dick, and it must be walked with caution. So go, build that new life even if only for a weekend, but know that whilst your cheese sandwich may be one of defiance and freedom, to the lady sitting next to you, it is just lunch.
My cheese sandwich still tastes pretty damn free, but I know it will become lunch rather soon indeed. Home calls me. It always will, and I’ll always return that call.
Real life awaits, and I am as excited to go back as I am to leave once more.
This article formed part of BRAW Magazine Issue 5: Mind, Mood, Mentality. You can read more of Issue 5 here.
Featured Image Credit: Alice Pollard
Journalism student at the University of Stirling & BRAW Magazine editor 24/25 and 25/26 🙂
You can see my portfolio here: https://www.clippings.me/alicepollard
