I don’t like to travel. Hey, I already said it. Before you rush to justify this phrase in your heads —“There must be some mistake!”—, I clarify that I am not referring objectively to the tedious act of displacement itself. In fact, stores Duty Free they inspire me quite calm and security, since they are the same in all airports, and I am the only person I know who is happy with airplane food, because basically it is the only time I allow myself to eat bread and butter until I can’t fit anymore bread and butter physically on my body. I also have no problem with being forced to sit for hours watching movies while I fly in a metallic capsule that, according to what they say, is quite safe and whose air system, or something (I didn’t pay attention), hinders the transmission of COVID -19.
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No, I mean “see the world”. Getting to a place where the humidity level is different and not being able to weigh in advance what that’s going to do to my hair and skin (but knowing it’s a bad thing). Because the bird droppings are suddenly orange and don’t wash off. Because the hotel’s air conditioning only has one option: die, son of a bitch. To live in fear of drinking tap water, and not counting on the fact that ice is solid water —and having to secretly spit it back into the glass— and cry with a little anxiety when washing my face at night. It is a cause of cervical contracture to live with the unknown for days of what effect certain exotic foods will have on your digestive system and having to take a bag with 37 medicines because you do not know what medicines are going to be sold in this new place, nor why so many are from pink colour.
I hate the pressure of having to be educated or at least happy. To enjoy every moment and every historical monument, and feel compelled to go up and down every corner of a city when what I really want is to go back to the hotel to see The Crown. Bueno, Las Kardashian.
The feeling of failure is inescapable when you travel. You have to get up early to make the most of every moment but you are on vacation and what you would like is to take advantage of the fact that you can sleep without being woken up by the neighbor using the microwave at 4 am However, if you sleep too well outside your house it can cause trauma Even worse: you’ll be looking for that hotel mattress that kept your lower back from hurting for years.
I forget that I don’t like to travel because in the past I only remember the good (I remember the beaches of Tulum but I forget that I asked for my mother to be brought to me because the hotel was too close to the sea and I thought I was going to drown).
That’s why I have to remind myself that I don’t like to travel. You don’t like it, Virginia, you don’t like it.