The traveller's classic rites of passage
Travel: how was it for you? Did you ‘find yourself’ halfway up a mountain and come down a different person? Did you meet the love of your life in the lower bunk of a hostel dorm? Did you reach a destiny-defining decision in the back of a chicken bus? Perhaps your experiences seem less melodramatic than this. But if you’ve spent any length of time living out of a backpack or a suitcase, there’s a fair chance you’ve chalked up one, some or perhaps many of a traveller’s classic rites of passage. These events range from the trivial to the transcendental, the unpleasant to the wondrous. But whatever the details, they qualify you for lifetime membership of the tribe animatedly swapping notes at the crossroads – the airport lounges, the train stations, the hotel bars – where travellers often meet. Here are a few you might recognise. Most travellers have at least one place that they just can’t shake That special place What? Just one? But you've been to dozens of special places; in f...
