The (Guilty) Traveller. Abroad in a Pandemic.

Finding a moment of calm at the top of Sri Lanka’s Ella Rock, just before a hurried exodus home to Africa

For most of my life, I’ve had an intense desire to travel. To see new places, hear new sounds and learn how they do things differently “here”

I believe the most valuable sort of travel sparks a picking apart of self, a questioning of why ‘we’ do things like THAT while ‘they’ do things like “this”. Where the biggest culture shock comes from getting home, and being prompted to change habits from having learnt something new.

But now the world has gone mad, and a pandemic rages out, leaving no-one untouched. Spread by the travel I’ve come to know and love, and smearing it into a dirty word overnight.

Yet, not only do I love to travel, but I’ve made a living peddling its wares. I do this not because I needed a day job, but because I wanted to get others excited about broadening their horizons too.

But now instead of excitement, there’s guilt. Guilt when people ask where I’ve been and I know the answer is “not home yet.” Not since this began. And, guilt in knowing I haven’t managed to make it home still.

Guilt felt not just by me, but by friends and colleagues who earn from travel and now face extremely uncertain times, a loss of their livelihoods and no way of knowing what’s coming next. Who don’t feel they have a right to air the stress of it all, because right now, travel feels like the bad guy.

Yet travel creates so many livelihoods, and if done right, it eliminates prejudice, encourages understanding and shows us the humanity in each other. Lessons we all need to draw on right now.

The past few weeks for me on the road started with uncertainty at whether I should shake hands, and progressed to people covering their noses and mouths when I walked past them this week as a foreigner in Sri Lanka. I went from staring at the few mask-wearing travellers in transit a few weeks ago, to being the odd one out when I flew from Colombo to Dubai on Thursday with all my facial features on show.

This conversation is as global as the pandemic itself. It’s followed me from Australia, to New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Dubai and now South Africa - with people just picking it back up where someone else left it off. And it’s not looking to change any time soon.

So to all my friends who love travel, and earn a living or just find inspiration from it - keep telling your stories. Keep sharing what you find beautiful and exciting in this world and inspire people to embrace the difference out there. These are claustrophobic times ahead. But if we fire up our imaginations, we’ll clear space in our minds for when we can’t find it outside.