A few days ago from an exchange on Twitter with other travelers was born a beautiful comparison on different travel styles.
On the one hand who, like me, loves wandering with the backpack following without having completely clear where to go or how to get somewhere and therefore relies on good luck and who on the other carefully plan everything, from the hotels booked months before leaving, to the rental car, to the scheduled visits to the places of tourist interest and that starts with a beautiful sansonite with all the clothes folded in the beautiful way.
From this exchange of words, the idea was born to tell us who we are and why we travel each in our own way.
In short, a way like any other to tell what kind of travelers we are: improvisers or planners?
I of mine have never hidden the fact of being one who loves i backpacking and DIY trips, but that's not all.
I firmly believe that first of all the style of travel reflects the style of our life and my life has by definition always been a great casino.
Yes exactly, if there is a superior force that governs everything, this force in my case is there total disorganization.
I'm one of those who always preach well and are good at explaining how to organize a trip DIY, except that they scratch very badly and they never organize their trip.
It is not my fault, it has always been like this: in short, when someone is not able to organize themselves, they are not capable and point.
I am one of those who punctually buys the guides 6 months before leaving and then open them for the first time when I am now placed on the plane, so much to spend those ten hours of intercontinental flight that separate me from the destination.
I'm one of those who have a monstrous pile of clothes on the chair near the bed, of those heaps that even the cat is afraid to approach and I am one of those who when he returns from a trip in his backpack no longer has at least half of what he had brought with him: lost it, or I gave it away or exchanged it.
I admit, once I even stole it, that is, by mistake in the dormitory of the hostel I took a shirt thinking it was mine only to realize when I returned home that it was 5 sizes larger.
Even today it makes me laugh at the idea that the guy I inadvertently stole her from has found my Hello Kitty t-shirt bought out of desperation in some unlikely marketplace in exchange. China.
Night bus on one of my last trips
But when I leave I have an idea of the itinerary. On forums, social networks and various travel blogs I find very interesting ideas and many names of unknown places that capture my attention that I regularly mark on a crumpled piece of paper that I then carry around with me.
I took buses on the fly and I missed others, I almost never booked hostels and I never slept on the street, I saw many places and many others I reluctantly put them aside.
And every time from a trip I always came home happy with what I had experienced so I think it's okay.
I find this disorganization to be the funniest thing about my way of traveling.
Just as in normal life I don't like having fixed appointments, when I go somewhere I don't like having to see something at all costs, having to follow schedules or have plans: I prefer to "waste my time" wandering my nose up in the markets locals, getting lost in the streets, changing my itinerary at the last moment and going to places that I never even imagined existed before leaving.
And in doing so I discovered unimaginable places like the Valle di Jiuzhaigou.
But my way of traveling is not just being able to go where and when I want and like, it is also and above all being able to stop.
Pass through an unknown village and stop one more night to breathe a sunset that tastes of the sea, stop and watch the normal life of an ordinary village go by, stop to listen to a story that someone has to tell.
Travel without haste, savoring every minute and experiencing it as if at that moment there was nothing else, as if I didn't have to leave at all costs to go somewhere else.
The roof I slept on in Jerusalem
Many tell me that in this way I lose so many things to see, I not only don't worry about it, but I also think
that for everything that I have lost I have certainly found another and that, in any case, not having seen everything there was to see is an excellent excuse to return sooner or later.
And then I really think that the meaning of travel is travel itself and not a list of things to see and do.
Oh, I forgot, if during one of your travels you happen to meet a blond guy wearing a Hello Kitty shirt please don't tell him you know me.
This is me, an improviser traveler, messy and a little messy too. Here instead you find what kind of travelers they are Federica and Elisa.
What kind of travelers are you?
