What Paris Taught Us: Travel Young or Travel Old

In Paris, one of the more entertaining things to do is to people-watch. The city sees over 70 million people from around the world annually; people who live, act, even walk differently from what we’re used to in Los Angeles (there’s no forced pimp walk in Paris).

Anyway, in Paris, we regarded an old American couple walking. From the stooped shoulders and wizened hair, this couple was easily 80 years old. The wife had the itch to travel so badly, she wanted to see everything. She gently nagged her husband to move faster. His only response was: “I will, I’m moving,” as he pawed for remaining Euros in his pocket. Both were so happy to be in Paris, if not to be together living out their dream. I looked over to my husband and secretly hoped we would live long enough to travel when we’re old.

“You see that,” the mister said referring to the couple, “a lot of money to travel, but no time.”

As a traveler, the earnest question of age, and most importantly time, is often called into question. When we’re young, we have all the time in the world to travel, but few funds to get us there. When we’re old, we have all the money in the world, but very little time before we kick the bucket.

My first time out of the USA was just south of the border in Baja California, Mexico. In my opinion, even as a “Wexican” (word coined by yours truly to mean: mixed half white and half Mexican), the border to my heritage country is too close to call actual “travel.” As an adult who is of pre-drinking age in Southern California, it’s almost like a rite of passage to cross the border into Tijauna and Rosarito. Needless to say, when I visited Mexico, I had very little money, but I had plenty of time because I was young.

The mister has also traveled all his life. He and his family have moved around to places like Taiwan, Costa Rica, Japan and Africa, to name a few. As a tyke, he had no reason to think twice about money.

We’re young, but we’re both working adults. We have school loans, car notes and an incessant need to save save save. But, we decided that we would travel when we’re young because:

This is part of our bond.
Just like some couples love to eat and some couples love to go to the movies, we love to travel. Even at home, we’re out discovering places, like a new bakery or a new beach haven. It’s this shared discovery and appreciation that brings us closer.

The Bad Knee.
As we age, we become more saddled with responsibility. I could say something you already know about mortgages, babies and career stuff weighing you down, thus making it harder to just get up and go. But allow me to offer a different reason for the need to travel young: the responsibility of the bad knee. There are three stages of life: young, middle-aged and old. The last two stages are where we feel the decline of bodily motion. If we waited too long to get up and go, the very thing that may be holding us back are our own bodies.

Life is shaped when you’re young.
Our travels have shaped us to be more worldly, understanding and appreciative of our own hometown and cultures abroad. When we’re old, we can still experience new cultures, but it would be shadowed in the viewpoint of living one certain way all our lives.

For example, when the mister and I went to Taiwan, I cried a little when we came back. That place was so beautiful, I wanted to live there. I told my aunts and uncles who are pushing 60 that I really wanted to expatriate to Taipei. Their response: “oh, sweetie…no you don’t.”

I wish I could say that their disapproval was due to overprotective parenting. However, they responded that way because they have an image of Taiwan as being a developing country. My family may love Taiwan should they ever have the chance to visit, but they will be visiting with the mindset of living in America for 60 years, that anything different from the States isn’t good enough. It’s just not the same as the youthful mindset of the mister and I.

The Domino Effect.
If there is something that our travels have taught us, it’s that some people just don’t want what we have back home. They don’t want the ability to afford a car just so they can guzzle up gas and drive. They don’t want your American money (or pounds or euros) just because it has a higher perceived value based on a Western financial system. They don’t care if you’re blond with blue eyes, because we all look like Ethan Hawke and Nicole Kidman anyway (*cough* we all look alike).

The point is, a country may welcome tourism, but that doesn’t mean they want to replace their own lifestyle with that of the tourists’ native countries. As young travelers, we should be humble enough and not set in our ways yet to understand this concept. We should also be bold enough to spread the word to others back home.

There’s a second half to my Taiwan story: my younger siblings and cousins. The geriatrics of the crowd may have scoffed at my expat needs. But, the kids in the family ate up every last word. THEY are the new generation. THEY are the change we wish to see in the world and THAT is the Domino Effect: Open the eyes of someone else and they will do the same for generations to come.

Traveling is like going to college.
College is a time of discovery and learning how to interact with others at a more mature level. It’s called “being a professional.” Let’s face it, I don’t remember a damn thing from my Political Science classes. I think I fell asleep every day in my “Political Ideological Theory of the Interracial Canadian-American Youth” class. But, what I do remember is the process of growing up. Traveling does that, too, but in a physical aspect. Instead of learning about the political ideology of a country, we can travel there and get the hands-on experience. Then we can apply that to our own careers to grow and get better at what we do. Essentially, we travel so we can mature and shape our professional lives.

This isn’t to say that we wouldn’t travel as middle-aged adults with our future kids, nor that we will give up our travel ambitions when we’re elderly. I seriously hope that my Mexican genes kick in and I live to be 100 years old just so we can re-experience Paris like that older couple: myself, stooped and nagging (the only thing I know how to do best, by the way), the mister, moving slowly in his orthotics to catch up. Until then, we’re on the move now and it’s a WONDERful experience.

But seriously, though, Mexicans crack like crazy (don’t age well), but we live forever.

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