Can’t wait to hit 50

Anyone with more than a nodding acquaintance with me would know that I, sort-of, like all things travel. That includes not just the heady smell of ‘foreign-ness’ in an alien land, but also the in-betweens through which a little snippet of information or a long-standing yearning goes from being a germ of an idea to a fleshed-out itinerary. Yup, my idea of a cosy night in is binge-reading hotel reviews on Tripadvisor.

So why a long-winded preface on travel for a post that presumably has more to do with age? It doesn’t.

I have been to 48 countries, to date. From roughly around the time I got to 15, I have been besieged by advice to document my experiences in a blog…from well-meaning friends who have been relentlessly optimistic that I would one day slap the dust off my backside and put finger to keyboard. To be fair, I did give it deep thought. But while I contemplated some more and got busy with other fleeting preoccupations, a strange thing happened – the world moved on. Getting out of the 9 to 5 rut became a thing and signing-up for a location-independent lifestyle an even bigger thing. With the result that by the time I got around to the idea, travel blogs had become glossy WordPress productions that their nomadic owners monetised and got book deals out of. Added to it was the reality that, now to have any chance of standing out as a travel writer, not only did you have to swim with whales but eat them too and then campaign against their killing for good measure. Novelty had become travel gold dust…which repeatedly had me asking – really, why would anyone want to read my blog?

Nevertheless, like milestone birthdays often set the stage for major life resolutions to take wings, I resolved to start blogging when I hit a travel milestone – country number 50. However, a spur-of-the-moment career break has resulted in my being resource-poor to make 50 or indeed 49 happen but time-rich to get this blog started. So here I am – raring to go at 48.

Which is not to say, I no longer speculate on the ‘would anyone want to read it’ issue. But considering you are still here, perhaps, it’s worth giving it a shot.