The Lust of Wanderlust
When I was little, I ached to travel around. I mean, I heard all these stories from my classmates and neighbourly of how their families would pack up every summer and venture to other neighboring cities for a summer break at their grandparents’ house like it was the most natural thing in the world. Ihad no such luxury as both sets of grandparents lived in the same city. Oh, how I envied those who had relatives in any other city. Mind you, this was back in the days that even stepping out of our locality was considered a great deal – like crossing into some exotic foreign territory. When my classmates would talk about visiting localities like Imli Bagh or Naya Bazaar, or about cities like Tirori or Chandameta, I’d listen to these tales with wide eyes and a heart full of longing, imagining myself in bustling train stations and unfamiliar streets.
As I grew up, I finally got my chance. Opportunities came knocking in the form of inter-school competitions first (which I’d always win, Allah’s blessings), and felicitation programs later on (after tenth board exam, I was kinda in the merit list). These trips would just be to Nagpur (I live in a small city near Nagpur). Those trips felt like grand adventures. The excitement of boarding a bus with my teachers, the thrill of seeing aging, dusting buildings and walking down bustling streets of Mominpura-I used to feel like “I’ve arrived”. It was everything my younger self had dreamed of. I remember feeling so worldly, so sophisticated, finally having my own travel stories to share.
Just as I got adjusted to this idea of being a “regular traveller to Nagpur”, others around me had already moved on to bigger things. Suddenly, everyone was talking about trips to bigger cities like Mumbai and Pune, and even cities outside our state – Delhi, Bangalore. The goal posts kept shifting, and there I was, still feeling proud about my Nagpur expeditions while my friends casually mentioned summer trips to Delhi and Agra and the goose-bumps inducing moments when they see Rashtrapati Bhavan and Tah Mahal. Yikes.
Oh, I’ll never get around that; I used to think. There was a felicitation program in Pune after tenth results, and we took a short 3 days’ trip to Mumbai. Oh, how I felt like I own the world.
But that was not it. It’s never it. It is always shifting. I joined my first job, and people were talking about trip abroad during summer. What the actual fudge? And then there were talks of onsite opportunities and how I’ll never get one because I’m a simpleton who wore modest muslim clothing and did not show the willingness to change to modern attire (because that’s what decided the fate of who gets an onsite, not who’s most deserving).
But you know what? I caught on eventually. The travel bug bit me hard, and I got a chance to visit Hyderabad for a couple of months. This was work-related, of course; I couldn’t have imagined travelling to this historic place on my own.
Since then I’ve been to the chaotic city of Mumbai, I’m living in Pune, seen a few other cities in India, and even managed a few international trips: surprise surprise. Yeah, I was also fortunate enough to get a chance to visit abroad: Kaneda and UK. There were phases when I was that person constantly planning the next adventure, and maintaining a running list of “must-visit” destinations when I lived in Vancouver and Sheffield. I’ve spent three days in a bed-and-breakfast where a 10X10 cell was shared by nine people on three three-tier bunk-beds.
I thought I had it all figured out. Travel was supposed to be this magical thing that broadened your horizons and collected experiences like stamps in a passport. And for a while, it was exactly that.
But here’s the plot twist nobody talks about in those glossy travel blogs: now, even the thought of traveling gives me a nightmare. Wanderlust? More like wander-anxiety.
I wish I could pinpoint exactly when it started, but somewhere along the way, age crept in and brought with it what I like to call “the gift of overthinking.” It’s like my brain upgraded its operating system to include a comprehensive disaster-prediction algorithm. Where I once saw adventure, I now see a thousand things that could go catastrophically wrong.
The planning stage alone has become an exercise in anxiety management.
Book a train? What if I don’t get a confirmed ticket? What if I have to travel on a RAC seat sharing the seat with some guy because IRCTC’s algorithms work that way? What if the ticket is confirmed but the co-passengers are morons who think they own the train?
Book a flight? But what if there’s turbulence? What if the airport gets flooded (when Bangalore airport was washed down by a downpour)? What if the flight crashes (hint: recent news or AirIndia crash)? What if I get my acid reflux and spend my entire trip rubbing my tummy?
Choose a hotel? What if the reviews are fake? What if it’s in an unsafe neighborhood? What if the WiFi doesn’t work and I can’t call for help? What if there are bed bugs? What if the shower doesn’t have hot water?
What if, what if, what if…
It’s exhausting being inside my own head these days.
The rational part of me knows this is ridiculous. I’ve travelled before. I’ve handled unexpected situations. I’ve survived delayed flights, language barriers, getting lost in foreign cities. But logic seems to have very little influence over the part of my brain that’s convinced every trip will end in disaster.
And then there are the dreams. Oh, the dreams.
I’ve started having these recurring nightmares about travel that would make a psychologist rub their hands together with glee. In one version, I’m always running through an endless airport, dragging a suitcase that seems to get heavier with each step, desperately trying to catch a flight that’s perpetually boarding but never quite leaving. The departure gate keeps changing, the corridors and escalators stretch longer and end up in a mall (weird?), and I wake up exhausted as if I’d actually been running marathons.
In another variation, I’m on a train that’s somehow both pitch dark and suffocatingly crowded. I can’t see where I’m going, can’t find my seat, and can’t breathe properly. The train keeps stopping at stations that aren’t on any map, without any platforms, and I realize I have no idea where I’m supposed to get off, or miss the platform by inches. There’s this sense of being trapped in motion, of being carried away from everything familiar with no way to get back.
The worst part about these dreams isn’t the obvious anxiety they represent – it’s that they feel more real than my actual travel memories. When I try to remember that lovely sunset on Burnaby mountains or the amazing street food in front of Saboo Siddique MusafirKhana, Mumbai, the memories feel distant and faded. But these dream-disasters? They’re vivid, immediate, and somehow more convincing than reality. And ever since I’ve started working remotely, travel has become more and more sparse. And tedious.
My family thinks I’ve lost my mind. I’m supposed to travel to Pune to return my olf office laptop, and I’ve breathed properly since then. The truth is, the mere thought of packing a suitcase makes my chest tight.
It’s not that I don’t want to travel anymore – part of me still craves those moments of discovery, of stepping into a new place and feeling that spark of possibility. But that desire is now wrapped in so many layers of worry and worst-case scenarios that it’s almost impossible to access.
I’ve become the person who reads every travel advisory, checks the weather forecast seventeen times, and researches the crime statistics of every neighbourhood I might potentially walk through. I’ve developed a habit of constantly thinking of worst-case scenarios and how I’d get out of it.
The irony isn’t lost on me. All this “wisdom” and “preparation” that comes with age has somehow made me less capable of doing the thing I once loved. I’m like a travel expert who’s too scared to actually travel.
Maybe this is just what getting older means – trading spontaneity for security, adventure for predictability. Maybe all those young backpackers with their carefree attitudes and their willingness to sleep in questionable hostels are just naive, and I’m the wise one now.
Or maybe I’ve just forgotten how to trust myself to handle whatever comes my way.
I think about that kid who was so desperate to see the world beyond our locality, and I wonder what they’d make of who I’ve become. Would they be disappointed? Would they understand? Or would they just shake their head and start planning another trip to Nagpur, because even a small adventure is better than no adventure at all?
The truth is, my feelings about travel have become complicated in a way I never expected. It’s no longer the simple equation of “another travel = exciting experience” that it used to be. Now it’s more like “travel = horrible experience + potential disasters + anxiety dreams + endless planning + what if something goes wrong + but also maybe it would be amazing and everything will work out great + but probably something will go wrong.”
I’m not sure if this is growth or regression, wisdom or cowardice. What I do know is that travel, like everything else in life, means something different to me now than it did when I was young. The glossy Instagram posts and wanderlust quotes feel like they’re speaking to someone else – maybe to the person I used to be, or maybe to people who haven’t yet discovered their own capacity for creative worry.
For now, I’m trying to make peace with this new version of myself. The one who prefers familiar beds and known restaurants, who finds comfort in routine and predictability. Maybe someday I’ll find a way back to that sense of adventure, or maybe I’ll discover that there are other ways to explore the world that don’t involve suitcases and departure gates.
Until then, I’ll keep having those dreams about missed flights and dark trains, and I’ll keep making excuses when friends invite me on their adventures. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll start planning a small trip – perhaps back to Nagpur, where it all began. Because sometimes the best way forward is to go back to where you first learned to be brave.
Alright, so that was the rant bubbling inside me right before I travel, ALONE, to Pune, for a record 11 hours stay.
P.S. This is a scheduled post. Allah knows best how I survived this trip (whether I survived this trip).
Shabana Mukhtar