total:spec - Travelling

“This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe searching for something we haven't tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay your welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It's probably worth it.”

So said Leonardo DiCaprio in his role as Richard in the 2000 film The Beach. Based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Alex Garland, The Beach depicted a (somewhat dramatic) take on a life event that many adults in their 20s either think about embarking on or do actually give up everything to do – going travelling.

So here I am doing just that – circling the globe looking for my own take on this tried and tested formula for finding adventures I could never have at home. My travels will take in three continents as I make my way through Thailand and various other southeast Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, the United Sates and Canada; all well-beaten paths but none that I myself had walked down.

As a man in my late 20s it was something I’d been thinking about doing for years. You leave university and you have your whole life stretching out in front of you. Gone is the comforting structure of the educational system and instead what you have is the unknown challenges of the adult and working worlds ahead. Which of course is plenty to keep you occupied for some years, but then I started hankering for the next stage of my life. Thing is, there wasn’t one.

Most people get a new job, but I couldn’t find one I wanted to do. I had a great job working as a feature writer for a national news agency that provided numerous perks and endless challenges. But soon even this wasn’t enough.

Other people get hitched, have kids. The former wasn’t looking likely any time soon; and as a gay man I wasn’t really bothered about doing the latter just yet – whether I’m in a relationship or not, I have no biological clock to worry about.

Some people just buy a house, but there was no way this was happening. My itchy feet would never allow me to settle in that way just yet. And what better way to cure itchy feet than go travelling?

I’d seen numerous friends of mine go and come back over the years, armed with tales of eating fried grasshoppers in Thailand, crawling through ice caves in New Zealand, getting molested by pervy men in Cambodia, and “pretending to these other travellers to be the Earl of Somewhere’s second son, who had been cast out for Some Mysterious Reason I never revealed”.

No matter how interesting a job you have, all of the above has got to beat sitting in an office for much of the year, occasionally going on holiday to some sun-drenched resort somewhere, right?

And yet, in my first few weeks travelling I’ve found that many of my fellow backpackers are treating their year away as just another part of that routine. For them, it’s an extended holiday filling in year before they head back to that job in the City. They stick together in unapproachable gangs, or lairy pairs, and I understand why - going away on your own is a scary thing.

But I’ve been told numerous times that it’s the best thing to do. And so far it has been. I’ve been forced to talk to people, not only other travellers, but also the locals. I’m not going to get fed unless I ask, and Thai people I’ve found to be very friendly and conversational - mostly genuinely, occasionally to take as much money as they can from you, sometimes both.

The popular kids, it seems, don’t get this kind of experience. They hang out together, head to the beach and party their hearts out. Me, I’m looking for something a little more visceral, a little more educational, and a story or two that not one single other person on the planet will be able to tell.

We have one thing in common though - a lack of fear of the idea of travelling. We are numbed to the unstable politics of other countries thanks to 21st century world events. So what that eight bombs exploded around Bangkok on New Year’s Eve? Or that there’s been a military coup in Fiji ? One Thai student I spoke to said that Bangkok had seen no difference in the amount of tourists visiting the city. And why would it? In a world where you can’t get on the London Underground without the possibility of being blown up, or walk through a New York that has seen the most horrific terrorism, a few bombs in Bangkok hold little fear.

In a strange way the now universal threat of terrorism has made the world an easier place to navigate. Travellers, this one included, now feel that if you can get blown up at home, you can get blown up anywhere, so why not go anywhere? And so here I am, heading anywhere, excitedly anticipating what will happen next.