The evolution of travel (and a traveler)

Going back to where it all began

The good ol’ days of travel ✈️

I will forever be grateful that I started traveling in a time before modern technology.

No smartphones.

No Google maps.

No Google translate or Google reviews.

No Booking.com.

If you needed to call someone, you paid to use a landline at an internet café or bought a phone card that never gave you even close to the amount of minutes it promised before disconnecting your call. If you needed to get somewhere, you used a physical map, turning it round and round and walking 20 minutes in the wrong direction because you didn’t have a little blue ball telling you that you were off course. If you needed to communicate with a local, you whipped out your pocket phrasebook and channeled Marcel Marceau. Needed a place to sleep? You walked around and inquired in various hostels, asking if there were rooms available and checking them out before committing because again, no online reviews vouching for their cleanliness. Wanted to eat a meal? You walked around and peeked in windows and took your chances.

If you were more of a Type-A traveler and did want to be on the safe side and get recommendations for some tried and true accommodations or restaurants, you could consult a Lonely Planet tome (but only if you were willing to add an extra five pounds to your bag)

Traveling in those days (God, am I really old enough to use that expression?!) was all about throwing caution to the wind. Hopping on a bus and hoping for the best, getting lost or stranded in a city—and having to ride the metro around until morning because you didn’t know about an event that had all the hotels fully booked—was part of the adventure.

No online reviews, no guarantees.

You might end up in a gem of a hostel—or with bedbugs. You might have the best meal of your life —or get food poisoning. Travel used to be unpredictable, messy, frustrating…but also kind of magical.

Shakespeare a Synové Bookstore, Prague

Be careful what you wish for 💫

Before leaving for my current trip, I had been waxing poetic about all the above—the wild, pre-tech travel days, the spontaneity, the freedom of being disconnected and unreachable.

Of course, the universe heard and responded by serving me a dose of nostalgia I didn’t ask for.

Upon landing in the Czech Republic, my phone decided it wanted nothing to do with the local SIM cards.

I had manifested the good ol’ days of travel.

Getting reacquainted with my past self 🥳

The purpose of this trip is not only to celebrate my 40^th birthday; I also wanted to get back in touch with that intrepid hitchhiking, backpacking, skinny-dipping, dance-till-sunrise girl I once was.

Losing my job last year has forced me to revert to my backpacker days—to an extent. I am traveling on a budget like I did back then, but nowadays I insist on a private bathroom. No longer will I share a dorm room with puking revelers returning from a night of debauchery at 4 a.m. and using my head as a step to climb into the bunk above. I also take a lot fewer risks now than I did when I was younger—ask me how I almost ended up in a Moroccan prison.

Better yet, don’t.

But I do miss the girl who would easily chat up the person next to her at a café, who could make a best-friend-for-the-day with someone she met on the bus. I have been wondering if that girl still exists, if maybe I could find her on this trip.

I chose Europe because this is where I first learned to travel solo. I studied abroad here in university, and this is the continent that really sparked my wanderlust.

I also wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Japan anymore 🇯🇵

Living in Japan for the last few years has changed me and has given me new lenses through which I see the world. For one, culture shock is much stronger now whenever I leave the country. I have grown used to quiet, order, cleanliness.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Prague was the stench – grime, boozy sweat and stale cigarettes. The next thing I noticed was all the dog shit and garbage on the streets.

And fully armed and loaded police.

And noise.

If I had come from anywhere else, all of this might have flown under my radar. I’ve lived in some sketchy places. I have traveled to and lived in developing countries, so I am no stranger to any of this. But I have now grown accustomed to a certain sterility that makes me hyperaware of that which is part of normal, daily life in other parts of the world.

So, my initial reaction upon arriving in Prague?

I miss Japan.

Now, if you know me, you know those are three words I would never say or even so much as think. Life in Japan has not been easy for me, so I even surprised myself when that thought crossed my mind. However, I was fully conscious of the fact that this was just the jet lag talking. It didn’t help that I had just gotten off a delayed 13-hour flight—dehydrated and sleep deprived—and spent my first hour in country haggling with a very unfriendly convenience store manager to give me my money back for the SIM card that wasn’t working. When I finally stumbled—bedraggled and disillusioned—into the hotel room I had paid an exorbitant amount for, I discovered that the advertised “view” was a stunning panorama of… the parking lot.

For the briefest of moments, I wanted to turn around and fly right back to Japan.

But in the light of day the following morning, things were looking brighter. I had a few hours of sleep in me and the breakfast buffet had eight different varieties of cheese. Need I say more?

My AirBnB in Malá Strana

The comforting cloak of invisibility 🫥

After getting over the initial discomfort of being out of my comfort zone (because there is a comfort in the familiar, even when the familiar isn’t always so kind), I started to realize something as I went about my days. No one was looking at me. No one was staring at or side eyeing me.

I blended in.

It was almost like I was invisible.

And it felt great.

Shop staff and waiters initially spoke to me in Czech. They assumed I belonged. Whereas in Japan, there is never any mistaking that I am an outsider. I will often get handed an English menu before I have even opened my mouth to speak. I have heard from so many foreigners who have lived in Japan for 20 or 30 years, speak the language fluently, have Japanese spouses and half Japanese children and they still get treated like an outsider.

I am an introvert. I hate being in the limelight, on display. Most days I try to just ignore the stares and whispers whenever I leave my house in Japan. But the daily hyper-visibility and unwanted attention has been wearing on me.

It’s not just uncomfortable and unsettling—it’s isolating.

I don’t think I realized, until this trip, just how much it’s affected me being treated like an alien. It keeps me from stepping out of the confines of my four walls most days, keeps me from being fully myself which only adds to the isolation.

Forget singing along to the music streaming through my headphones or spontaneously dancing in the street as I was wont to do in my previous life in Colombia; if I speak above a whisper, laugh too openly, dress in too much color, or do something perceived as socially unacceptable (the unspoken rules are complex and endless) I am swiftly put in check by death stares.

It makes me want to stay home and hide, and when hiding becomes your default, life starts to feel smaller.

I have become smaller—a watered down version of myself.

I guess I hadn’t realized the subtle psychological toll that being “othered” has taken on me. I think this trip is helping to shed light on that.

Now, being in a place where I don’t stand out, where I am anonymous rather than the only white girl in town, is so freeing. I don’t speak Czech, I don’t know my way around, I don’t know how public transportation works (is anyone actually paying for the tram? Why do I always seem to be the only shmuck with a ticket?), I am in unfamiliar surroundings, smiling faces are in short supply.

But I feel at peace.

One step closer to rediscovering that long-lost wild child.

Antikvariát Nerudova Bookstore, Prague

Following the blue dot back to myself 🔵

Eventually, I discovered an app-based e-SIM (my, how far we’ve come) and was back to being glued to my phone, reading hotel and restaurant reviews.

Modern technology is both a convenience and a crutch.

But it’s a crutch my old ass wants and appreciates, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

As my 40^th trip around the sun quickly approaches, I am reminded of the poem She Followed the Moon Back to Herself by Amanda Lovelace in which she writes:

“somewhere along the way

to finding herself,

she dropped her compass.”

And the moon says:

“don’t worry, just follow me.

try to keep in mind that

she may not be the same

as you left her, but she’ll be

exactly who you need.”

This trip has become more than just a nostalgic getaway and escape from a daily life that I sometimes find unbearable. It’s a mirror, showing me how I’ve changed, what I’ve outgrown, and what I still crave. It’s reminded me that I can still be spontaneous—even if I now prefer to rely on modern technology.

I’m also learning that while I have changed in some pretty fundamental ways, I’m still that 20-something wanderluster at heart, and I’m not done discovering new versions of myself.

Travel has always been about discovery and the unknown. But this time, it’s not just about new destinations and experiences. It’s about relearning who I am when I’m not constantly in the spotlight or under a microscope.

When I’m just an anonymous woman with a backpack and a map (albeit a digital one).