Some girls get bitten by the ballerina bug, while others never stop wanting to ride ponies. Some of us fail to outgrow either Disney princesses or the colour pink, and a number of children will always be finger-paint fans. I myself was never bitten by the ballerina bug. I was, however, bitten by the jet setting bug, and now I’m afflicted with a disease I affectionally call terminal wanderlust.

It started with something simple, make-believe on my bed as though I were on the Kon-Tiki raft myself, and only blossomed with my first international flight and subsequent adventure in England and Switzerland. On swallow does not make a summer, but sometimes we forget to count swallows and before we know it, the season is upon us. I never thought it would happen to me, as someone who is not only admittedly metaphobic but also suffers from motion sickness and collegiate-level means. And yet, I am addicted to travel, and that initial foray into the wonderful world of unfamiliar discovery was only perpetuated by more recent international adventures, a stirring in my soul that manifests as itchy feet, and a barrage of media reminders that leaves me sore like a combination scab/bruise every time I watch The Motorcycle Diaries or read Jules Verne or Into the Wild. I’m sure we’ve all had the dream of leaving the world behind on an infinite road trip that we imagine will answer all of our questions and bring us closer to the inner versions of ourselves. And there are numerous accounts in society that encourage this; Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin are among the myriads of authors silently whispering in our ears “just leave already!” like tiny devils on our shoulders, the way it is in old cartoons. I am just not satisfied by reading, watching, imagining, by anything that doesn’t involve packing a bag and alerting my bank.

My problem is a complex one, because while travel is now assuredly deep within my bloodstream, I am constantly at war with my own insticnts. Both experience and the lessons of others serve to remind us that even in Vegas, we are not always Hunter S. Thompson, and the open road has its own dream-crushing realities, but the elation that comes from close encounters and the danger of having to sacrifice something for the great unknown is too addictive to be truly paralysing. So begins the struggle: do what feels right, or do what feels conventionally reasonable? It’s an endless dichotomy; I am delighted to find that someone can get properly lost in my own backyard, but frustrated by the sacrifices it entails for those of us with serious ambitions. I am always planing my next long-distance extended-stay holiday, but also spending an equal amount of time massaging around dates and figures that don’t want to fit together nicely. I take those trips which fall into place comfortably, but, as my sister so aptly states, the standard I have set for travel in the last few years is certainly not the norm, and likely skewed from the plane of reasonable. Still, I cannot deny that I love to travel madly and will look for any excuse, programme, or mission that will so allow it. On every application form I boldly check the “willing to relocate” box and review my travel photographs regularly. I subscribe to travel magazines and get excited about things like public transit systems and maps. I read blogs about culture in cities I’ve never been to and check out guidebooks at the library for locales I have not yet decided to go. I constantly check airline fares. I aspire to learn about five new languages.

For one not so deeply enamoured with the world of travel, it can be difficult to comprehend why I’d go to such great lengths, travel such intense distances, and not bat an eye at such outlandish opportunities — Climb Mt. Fuji? Body board in -10º water? Yes, please. — but there’s something empowering about being self-sufficient and something alluring about packing your bag and heading west that will never altogether leave us. The romantic version of travel has been employed in far too many novels, movies, and songs to count, and while I certainly have experienced a picture closer to the truth than any of Jack London’s works ever could paint, travel writers, good travel writers, put human wanderlust under the microscope, not just its redemptions but its shortcomings too in a very real way, taking a few hundred page picture of an aspect of human nature (albiet an extreme version of it) that, despite leaving a few bodies such as Alexander Supertramp’s by the wayside, remains alive and well today. To a large extent, I hope that need for distance, for exploration, for a never-ending feed of the new will never diminish, as if it is somehow genetically encoded into our DNA. For you, the urge to take a vacation may crop up only after nine months of stress, and for me I might find the need to move every three years too strong to deny, but in whatever way the art of travel must be perfected by us all.

There is more than one kind of travel as well, and though not all of us can take an epic road trip across the entire continental US, or backpack through all of Europe over the course of three months, we can take weekend adventures. I don’t just love visiting the glitz and glamour of Tokyo and Paris, but I love the countryside and the mountains. I love backpacking through national parks and camping on beaches. I love trains, planes, and automobiles. I like talking to people as much as I like quietly observing. I can pack my essential belongings in a single bag, I can sleep anywhere, and I have a list at least twenty-five items long of places I’d love to be my next destination. I have difficulty with my acquaintances underestimating my commitment to travel, mistaking my passion (not interest, but passion) for the art of travel as a passing comment, a sidelong suggestion that will never make it off the drawing board and into cold hard tickets. But what my colleagues fail to understand is that around every corner is an opportunity to travel in some fashion, to another country, another city, another neighbourhood, and I am not about to pass up such fortuitous conditions. What my friends may never understand is every trip proposition is a serious one for me, and every idea feasible. I have long since understood that my jet setting habits might be too different for the average person to fathom, and my priorities of a different nature. Every destination beckons to me with new promises and old comforts, and the grass will always look greener across the borderline (or, as the case may be, time zone), so essentially, I can deprive myself, I can deny myself, and I can pretend I’m a homebody, but the bottom line is that, however alone, however misunderstood, I am a traveller, in every sense of the word.

Want to know where I’ve been? Check out my Dopplr 2008 Annual Report.