Written by Alison Karlene
World explorers, casual backpackers, and typical tourists alike often find themselves reminiscing over places past.
World explorers, casual backpackers, and typical tourists alike often find themselves reminiscing over places past.
Miniscule moments can spark déjà vu that quickly turns into fond memory at best, or extreme nostalgia.
It’s easy for travellers to muse over past adventures, but it’s incredibly difficult to fight the longing to go back.
Don’t commit the traveller’s faux pas—going back.
Things will never be the same.
If you do go back, everything will be identical. But your experiences won’t.
If anything marks and colours a backpackers’ personal impression of a place, it is experience—the people, weather, activities, and appearance of the places you go.
If anything, returning to a place will only make you miss it more. The memories will be fresh and suffocating, surrounding you—pouring salt on your wounds. You will miss the people. You will see the adventures you undertook everywhere around you. And it will be so, so difficult, because even though everything is the same, you aren’t.
I cannot express the importance of moving on. I regard my past experiences in Oz with a glossy smile. Reliving the past doesn’t fill me with regret. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling: closure.
Now I know not to bother trying to refuse the past its place.
I fix my eyes forward, keep dreaming, keep travelling, and move on.
Alison Karlene
