When I was a young warthog, my dad took me on trips around the world.
Before the first trip, my mom wrote me a letter. She told me how lucky I was to be going on a great adventure. That the worst parts of the trip would become my fondest memories.
She was right.
But like all millennials, I didn’t appreciate her wisdom. Probably because I was scared shitless, but that’s beside the point.
The first trip was in 1997. I was twelve.
Scrooge McDuck Swan Dive
Smoking was still allowed on flights. I remember getting off an Air France flight feeling like we’d done Scrooge McDuck Swan Dives into pools of ash and cinder.
We saw the still operational, Concorde parked at De Gaulle.
I gave my Dad shit that he didn’t spring for us to fly on the needle nosed fastest commercial plane on earth.
I remained miffed until it exploded in 2000. Then I saw the wisdom of not riding on the Concorde.
Leave it to the French to design an aircraft that literally turns its nose up at you.
My favorite travel memories include:
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- A harrowing three hour bus ride through the slums of Bombay (present day Mumbai) .
- Almost having a coronary landing between skyscrapers at Kai Tak.
- Avoiding submachine gun toting teens who were high on huffed glue and kat in the back alleys of Nairobi
- Stepping in front of a double decker bus in Hong Kong and being saved at the last second by the scruff of my neck by my Dad. I blamed the jetlag. My Dad blamed a terminal case of stupidity. Jurys out.
- Getting charged by a bull elephant on the Masai Mara.
- Sneaking past dozing Rwandan border patrol agents because my Dad dared me to run across the Ugandan-Rwandan border. Though today, I claim I’ve been to Rwanda, I freely admit that the risk outweighed the reward in that instance. I should’ve been shot.
- Hiking Sossulvei dehydrated
- Riding in a seatbeltless taxi driven by a drunk Afrikaans through the streets of downtown Windhoek, Namibia
Me, my Dad and Des in Old Delhi
These memories instilled a lifelong obsession with travel and fueled my decision to return to the Heart of Darkness for our Honeymoon.….
I know many people who could afford this kind of trip, but just don’t see the value in it (ironically, this is why they can afford it.) They don’t see the dividends it would pay for them long term emotionally.
Below are seven reasons I think you should go to Tanzania.
If I inspire one person to buy the ticket and take the ride, as it were, the time I spent writing this malarky and enduring the subsequent envy or resentment it generates will be well worth it.
The posts are organized in sequential order. Digestible bite sized pieces that cater to the millennial attention span.
But Beware!
There is no vaccine for the travel bug.
-Zanzibar
-Honeymooning Honey Badgers
-There are Mud Huts in Rome
-The Great Migration
-Sevrini Mallya
-The Masai
-Malaria Dreams