I landed in Fiji with a bloated stomach and stiff neck; with it, a thought that kept bugging me all the way from the airport tarmac to the immigration desk. No, it was not about how I was in the eastmost part of the world I had ever been to and how grateful I was for this trip. No, those thoughts came much later.
The question I had in my mind was:
Have I become too old to travel?
I pondered on it while lying on the bed in the hotel after having a delicious dinner by the beach. I was so tired and would fall asleep almost immediately.
Tired? Only after only a 4.5 hours trip? Ha!
I used to do 13 hours trips, land, check in and immediately venture out to make the most of my vacation. And when I said “used to”, I used to do it up to three years ago. If you minus a couple of years of Covid, there was not even a year gap between now and when I went on the Scandinavian trip with a backpack and a pink carry-on, traversing six countries.
The same carry-on that recently took me four days to pack for the five-day trip to Fiji, with two meltdowns and one call to Jik to complain and check whether she packed an ointment because if she didn’t, I would have to.
The phone call continued with, “shall I pack sleeping tea for you too?” and ended with “I am bringing sunscreen and shampoo. Can you please bring facewash?“.
In the end, I also managed to squeeze in a weekly pill box, beanies just in case (even though I was flying to Fiji ━ and might need it on the plane, I tried to reason with myself), body scrub and sambal. The last one is totally justified because it’s the number one rule of travelling while Indonesian.
I used to be a passport-wallet-phone, check-check-check kind of girl. Now, I travel with a Covid folder. Inside it, multiple prints of PCR tests for Covid vax and other country-specific travel-related check-lists.
Yes, these days, travel is more challenging and expensive (especially if you live on the corner of the world map, like me) with the added uncertainty resulting in anxiety, but surely I can’t blame Covid for everything, can I?
I am travelling again this weekend; the flight will be way longer than my latest 4.5-hour trip. I had been dreading the upcoming flying experience for months until I sat and wrote down a comprehensive hygge-flight plan yesterday.
The plan includes me wearing a specific travel outfit; think celebrity go-to travel outfits (the ones that paparazzi photograph them wearing on the way to or from the airport).
I will be checking in my reliable 80litre Samsonite luggage, which will only be half-full, so I can buy souvenirs and not have another meltdown for not being able to squeeze a comb into the carry-on (true story ━ happened during the Fiji trip).
In addition, the backpack has compression socks, fuzzy rabbit slippers, sleeping pills, two types of ointments, a medicine box and multiple snack packs ranging from healthy to possibly banned from the flight.
I have also downloaded guided meditation, ambience sounds, beginner-level chair yoga YouTube videos and podcasts with calming voices and stories instead of a thousand True Crime episodes.
Are these the signs that I am getting older? Older, yes, but never too old to travel.
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