Travel= Adventure?

This is the third summer in a row I’ve spend traveling internationally. Each summer I’ve encountered different cultures, people, and adventures, but the more I travel and the longer my travels extend to, I come to learn different lessons.

I think secretly I harbor a lot of pride in my few travels. I try to pretend that its no big deal and act like a super cool kid off the block, but in reality I love meeting new people in the states and acting super causal about my travels as if its no big deal. Then time passes and I crave to travel again. I get huge wanderlust. But the more I think about it, a lot of my travels have been tainted by my corrupted desire to exonerate myself. When I am traveling like I am this summer in Egypt, I feel a urgent and desperate desire to go on “adventures”. I wasn’t able to go to the Pyramids for the first few weeks of my time here and it killed me.

I kept saying “Man I just want to go on a adventure!”

But what did I really mean by that?

I think I was desperate to have a cool story to lord over my friends to show them how cool I was. To be able to casually talk about the fact that I’d been somewhere so iconic.

I’ve made some really good and wise friends here in Egypt, and through their stories I’ve been convicted. One such friend told me she meet an Egyptian woman and this woman offered to take her to all the fun spots she wants to go to. My friend explained that all she would want to do (or know to do) is the very basic Trip Adviser tourist sites. So rather than getting her Egyptian friend to take her to the cool adventurous places that would make great stories, she asked her to take her to her favorite places. So instead of going on some crazy adventure this weekend, my friend and her Egyptian friend are going to the Egyptian friend’s university to walk around.

Several times in my time here I’ve been offered to do what the locals do or something more touristy, and I’ve taken the touristy bait every time.

Now I’m not saying doing touristy things like the pyramids is bad or wrong in any way, but I am saying that when Americans travel, we can get caught up in our own self image and only scratch the surface of the places we go to visit.

When I go back to the states I don’t want to have my best and most important story to be the pyramids. No, instead I want to share about the amazing culture here, the hospitality and warm of the people, and depth of the relationships I formed with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Traveling shouldn’t equal adventuring. Traveling should equal open-mindedness, appreciating, and learning. The more I travel the more I learn that individual people’s stories are far more important than any pile of rocks.

I’m going to be honest, I’m not done adventuring in Egypt and that’s okay! However, I am not going to solely devote my time to my adventures. I want to invest in the people here, ask to hear their stories, and if I have a free Saturday maybe I’ll enjoy Alexandria!