The 5 Lessons I Learned from My First Trip

What was my first trip? Where does my love for travel come from?

In my family, the notion of traveling has always held significant importance, whether in my mother's vacation daydreams, as she rushed to search for our future summer destination as soon as September began, or in my father's childhood stories. Having lived those tender years in Africa, he shared stories with us, part biography and part fairy tale. Through him, I remember those giant fruits, those strange trees, the red earth and dust, the sun, toys made from nothing... He dreamed of taking us to see Lake Kivu, a dream he could not fulfill, yet I keep it close to my heart: one day I hope to see those regions of which my father spoke, fully aware that I will not find the images of his childhood intact...

A pivotal encounter also specifically ignited my curiosity for the unknown: a little foreign girl who joined my class when I was 7 years old. I remember her first day at school as if it were yesterday. Our teacher, introducing the new student to the class, explained that she did not yet speak our language well:

Who would agree to share their desk and locker with Amanda?

Without hesitation, one hand shot up in the class: mine (the one who never raised her hand!). And thus began a great friendship that lasted several years, between Amanda, a biracial girl from Arizona, and me.

Amanda and Amandine, a wink of fate?

It was true that when Amanda returned to her country a few years later, we continued to correspond until I was 15. Later, during my internship in Quebec in 2007, I found her email, and we resumed our correspondence, swapping sheets of paper and impossible deadlines for instant messages: the miracle of technology!

Here we are, at the heart of the matter: my first trip... What was it?

My stay in Canada was my first solo departure, my first crossing of the ocean, my first experience of independence and cohabitation...

A lot of adventures, indeed, but I do not consider this stay to be my first trip: I had my apartment and was thus rooted in one place (even though I went on various expeditions: Niagara Falls, Montreal, New York...). It was more of a mini-experience of expatriation, a very conclusive experience!

My first trip was the one I made two years later, once I had my diploma in hand, with my partner who had just proposed: South America.

Since I was 16, the project of backpacking and volunteering in Latin America had been lingering in my mind, until it became a catchy tune! January 2009, bags on our backs, we boarded the plane without knowing what awaited us, except for that first night in Paraguay with a couple we found through Couchsurfing: no idea of itinerary, no idea of the duration of the trip. The motto was simple:

When we run out of money, we go home!

And that's what we did while traversing Paraguay, Bolivia, northern Chile, and Peru (the northern part near Trujillo), Ecuador (the Galapagos), and Argentina (Buenos Aires). A magnificent journey of 5-6 months in South America, full of contrasts and rich in lessons.

If travel is a virus, we have irretrievably contracted it... and we hope to never heal!

Worse than a virus, travel is a drug, an aphrodisiac: I never feel as alive as when I am on the road!

You must take the time to enjoy each discovery on site, let the randomness of encounters and surprises create opportunities. I recently loved a quote I discovered:

If you want to go far, you must go slowly, and what could be better than a vintage car?

This is a sentence I remembered from the beautiful movie > (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), as it made me smile and think of the misadventures that occur on the roads:

"Everything will be all right in the end... If it's not all right then it's not the end"

()

Yes, there are less funny moments, even downright troublesome... but with hindsight, we can laugh about (almost?) everything.

Friends had warned me about the cultural shock, the risk that I would stand out with my blonde hair in a sea of black hair, like a hair in the soup (going so far as to prescribe a serious dye job!).

Yes, I was > immediately. Whether we like it or not, this label of > sticks to our skin. But it is also an opportunity to make encounters, to spark the curiosity of locals eager to learn more about my home country and its customs just as I am regarding theirs.

And concerning cultural shock, the most challenging aspect for me to manage was the injustices, the most blatant being the disparity in living standards and wealth distribution. Arriving in villages where people live with almost nothing makes one reflect. And that is a good thing.

I was relieved to talk to a seasoned traveler who described her first trip to India, where she felt ashamed of these differences, her > and wanted to blend in more. No matter how much she traded her clothes for old fabrics and intentionally dirtied them, it was futile: her Western airs are the only thing locals see, regardless of how she dressed around it.

It may seem simplistic as a statement, banal, even obvious, but the world is beautiful: nature, landscapes, contrasts ... and also history and ruins, cultures and customs ... and even people.

Living in a well-oiled Western society, with a mind-numbing routine >, we often come to regard this > of people as constraining objects (crushing me in the subway, preventing me from walking at my own pace on the streets ...) or even harmful.

What a refreshing and beautiful breath of fresh air it is to step back from all of this! To find oneself > in the world, neither an ant nor the center of the world: just one element among others, all interconnected.

Do not misunderstand my words: I do not advocate travel to see > elsewhere: I do not endorse the proverb >. Travel, in my eyes, is not a search for > but truly for >.

I may be straying too much into metaphysical reflections; perhaps I have already lost you ... In summary, I believe that travel allows for > one's biases about the world and people, to make beautiful encounters, to believe that there is good in humanity, that the world is worth seeing, and that life is worth living.

If with all these beautiful lessons I don't inspire you to leave, I still have some reassurance for you. Some people call me lucky or courageous, or even reckless, for daring to travel like this to the four corners of the world.

Daring to step out of your comfort zone is a skill one can learn. Nothing prevents you from starting small and gradually expanding your circle of confidence.

Of course, you will go through a thousand different emotions before a big departure, and that is also the charm of the adventure: the future traveler experiences a true emotional rainbow. I know that it reassures some travelers to see that their > is normal: they are not alone in doubting, being afraid, being euphoric, and overwhelming those around them by only talking about that ...

This first trip has allowed me to evolve in many ways. Now, I do not consider travel as mere vacations: travel becomes a value, a philosophy of life.

I learned that travel could be much more than just refreshing vacations, that distancing myself in new surroundings also has therapeutic virtues; it has gradually taught me to love myself inside and out, and it might even have the ability to make one smarter and happier!

And I am lucky to share it with my partner, allowing us to travel together. We always have multiple travel projects ahead of us, dreaming of our future expeditions with promises of departure written down on our Bucket List.

I hope you enjoyed this article; if so, feel free to share your experience in the comments!

To continue reading

• First Trip: The Fear of Taking the Plunge (Response to a Reader)

• Finding Meaning in Life with the >

• Step Out of Your Comfort Zone!

• 7 Difficulties in Travel and How to Avoid Them

• Why Travel Makes You Happy?