About Traveling Abroad

Lately, traveling abroad has been trending among us, middle class kids. The low-cost carriers offer flights on good deals. Traveling guides and infos are easily accessible. Another reason: the social media websites encourage people to show-off (“Touch down, Hongkong!”, “Step on London”, you state it). What got me interested was, the fact that some of us see this like,“Why are you obsessed with traveling abroad? We’ve got all beauty in Indonesia already. We even have modern day dinosaur!” I got the idea of being so fed up with showing-off kind of people, but I guess the urge to travel is natural, that they created the term ‘wanderlust’.

wanderlust

Pronunciation:/?w?nd?l?st/

noun [mass noun]

a strong desire to travel:a man consumed by wanderlust

I don’t come from a family who can provide me stacks of money to go travelling abroad like anytime anywhere. Like most of ordinary Indonesians, travelling is still a luxury especially when it involves more than 8 hours flight. However, it was my parents who inspire me to travel. Ayah, my father, when he went to Dallas for company training decided to spend all of his allowance to travel from East Cost to West Cost of US instead of saving & bringing the money back home. Bunda, my mother, agreed. They were on the same side of the road: “You came to America which didn’t happen everyday, so why wasted it?” So my father traveled from Washington to Richmond-Virginia, while back at home we still struggled with installment of our house that time.

So about 14 years later, when I was invited to Europe for a student festival, they said, “Go, see Europe. Extend the trip.” Then I spent such great amount of their money in 2 weeks. It was worth it. It wasn’t about the pride of saying, “Oh, I’ve been to Scandinavia,” or uploading the photo album titled “Euro Trip” to social networking sites. The trip taught me a lot about the beauty of western culture and how they develop in such discipline. The trip inspired me to be better and push me to run faster, chasing for higher dreams. Plus, the charm of Europe got me promising myself to come back with my own money. As for me, traveling, indeed, injects spirit to my veins. On one word: priceless.

For me, we live this life only once. It’s too short to be spent with saving every cent for your future son & daughter. Save some too see the world yourself, plan (or at least, dream) to travel, so later you can tell them to do their best for conquering the world.

To close this, I quoted a quote from Mila Fira’s tumblr, an inspiring charming young woman who travels a lot herself.

“Orang berilmu dan beradab tidak akan diam di kampung halaman

Tinggalkan negerimu dan merantaulah ke negeri orang
Merantaulah, kau akan dapatkan pengganti dari kerabat dan kawan
Berlelah-lelahlah, manisnya hidup terasa setelah lelah berjuang.

Aku melihat air menjadi rusak karena diam tertahan
Jika mengalir menjadi jernih, jika tidak, kan keruh menggenang

Singa jika tak tinggalkan sarang tak akan dapat mangsa
Anak panah jika tidak tinggalkan busur tak akan kena sasaran

Jika matahari di orbitnya tidak bergerak dan terus diam
Tentu manusia bosan padanya dan enggan memandang

Bijih emas bagaikan tanah biasa sebelum digali dari tambang
Kayu gaharu tak ubahnya seperti kayu biasa jika di dalam hutan.”

–Imam Syafi’i