We had a realization this week: traveling the world for the year is not the easiest thing to do. It’d be a lot easier to pack up tonight to go home instead of the next foreign country. I wouldn’t say we are “homesick” because that makes it sound like more of a constant problem; whereas the feeling we have comes in waves and when we least expect it. We intermittently miss the stability and the people back home.
It’s hitting us now for two reasons: one, home and Morocco are disparate worlds, and we’ve been here for almost three weeks; two, we have a ton of logistics to work out for our next 2-3 months of travel. The world is indeed our oyster, but frankly, it’s overwhelming.
We feel pressure to see off-the-beaten-path places, but the trouble is finding them. The idea is to escape the big cities with their main attractions and tourists haphazardly wielding selfie sticks. We’ve also realized it’s challenging but necessary to find what’s native and avoid what’s been designed as tourist traps. The problem is that doing so means intensive research, more unknowns, and additional travel time.
I felt like I was reading a well-written version of my own thoughts the other day when I opened up the August issue of Conde Nast Traveler, titled, “The New Nomad.” Melinda Stevens, the editor in chief, summed up the way we’ve been feeling about travel lately, saying:
“And yet recently I’ve begun to wonder about the joy of travel, when the world feels infinite and full of curiosity, when it illuminates itself to us, and we—backs straight, eyes blazing—shine within it. I wonder whether our yearning for it has become so intense that we’re crushing the very thing we love the most. On various trips in recent years, to small American cities, to out-of-the-way coasts, even to deserts, I have been shocked to the core by the sudden wall of us, the swarms of us, the sheer scale of our numbers…And I think this will be crucial going forward, to focus on the off-grid, the overlooked, the ungentrified, the forgotten, the places that will resonate because we have not fiddled with them, and we have not required them to become parodies of themselves.”
Melinda, if there’s any chance you ever read this, you nailed it!
All that said, our house is rented until May and all of our belongings are in storage, so we aren’t going home! We know how we’re feeling is totally normal. Soon, we will be loving the next stop on our world tour, and I won’t be able to believe I ever wrote this post. But hey, what’s the point of this blog if we aren’t being honest about how we’re feeling right now?
But, we thoroughly enjoyed our final week in Marrakech, and we hope you’ll equally enjoy our post below about the touristy and a few not-so-touristy spots we visited.
P.S.
Here is a link to the full Editor’s letter. And if you want to read the full magazine, which I recommend, I thought I would share one of my favorite travel hacks - my public library app. I get tons of magazines, books, and audiobooks for free on my iPad and iPhone all with my Public Library card and an app called Libby. I don’t have room to pack or the strength to carry the real deal. Nor do I have time for the overpriced magazines found at the airport. A delayed flight isn’t as bad when you have 6 magazines and a book downloaded.