How Do You Know If You Have Wanderlust?

How Do You Know If You Have Wanderlust?

by Megan L. Wood

I became afflicted with wanderlust at an early age — in elementary school. I had one pen pal in Sri Lanka and another in Kenya. It seemed grossly unfair that I wasn’t from anywhere exotic. Part of my wanderlust was longing for an ideal place where I would fully belong and be completely understood. The other part was curiosity and an adventurous spirit. With so many different cultures and countries out there, I knew I had to see the world. As soon as I finished college, I fully succumbed. I searched for my tribe like Ponce de Leon searched for the fountain of youth. I lived with actors in Hollywood, joined the Peace Corps in South America, got married and divorced, fled to New York, Asia, and Africa. I searched for my people on a yoga mat in Mexico, in a Mayan village, and on Craigslist. Ponce de Leon never encountered the fountain of youth, but at least he got to see Cuba before the travel embargo. Me, I still research around-the-world tickets.

How-to know if you have wanderlust:

• You toss and turn at night worrying that Croatia is becoming more and more Westernized everyday.
• You watch Dateline’s coverage of the disappearance and death of vacationing American teen, Natalee Holloway, and feel jealous that she got to visit Aruba.
• You troll strangers’ Facebook pages for their vacation photos.

• You consider breaking up with your partner because he or she doesn’t know where Uruguay is.
• You can say ‘hello’ and ‘love’ in fifteen languages.
• You get rid of possessions based on the idea that you won’t need them in Zambia.
• You think that being part of a harem wouldn’t be so bad as long as you could get a free ticket to the Middle East.

• Your family and friends and school and work and hobbies seem like the absolute worst.
• You know you could be amazing if you could only ride an elephant in Thailand or a camel in Morocco.
• You follow travel bloggers on Twitter and hate them.
• MTV’s “Exiled” was your favorite TV show.

• You’ve memorized TSA’s carry-on baggage restrictions.
• You can’t stop talking about how much you loved the bread in Paris when you studied abroad. And how awful American bread is by comparison.
• Working as an au pair sounds like a good idea.
• You fantasize about getting on a flight and disappearing, never telling anyone where you’ve gone, maybe one day sending a cryptic postcard from the road.

• You set price alerts for flights to countries you’re not sure how to pronounce.
• You start dating a musician in hopes that he’ll take you with him when he goes on tour.
• Peace Corps sounds like a good plan.
• You convince yourself that your hometown is slowly suffocating you and the only cure is to get on a plane and go somewhere else.

Photos by Megan L. Wood

Megan L. Wood uses her middle initial to distinguish herself from all the other women named Megan Wood.

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