I've made 2 visits to the United States : the first to New York State in 1978; and the second to California in 1991. Both were of a short duration (ie a fortnight or so), and involved family business and visits to friends, rather than pure tourism. My visit to New York also extended to a further few weeks in the Caribbean, taking in short stays on Grand Bahama and Aruba. Between 1984-5, I took a rather longer "working holiday" to Australia, incorporating a "stop-over" in the Philippines on the way out, and an unintended (but nevertheless interesting and enjoyable) stay in Papua New Guinea. These, other than some back-backing in Israel and Egypt, are the sum total of my adolescent/adult long-haul travel. Although, it should be said that I also visited Australia and the Far East in the mid 1960s, as an infant, travelling mainly by ship. With regard to short-haul travel in Europe, I've done a fair amount of this, roughly half for "holidays" and the rest work-related. Quite a lot of this used, incidentally, rail, bus and ferry services. So I've done a fair amount of travelling in my time, but have made only 4 short-haul trips to Europe since the mid 1990s, and none since early 2001. It is now nearly 7 years since I visited another European country. So why have I become not only very grounded, but very little travelled at all in recent, and, indeed, not so recent, years.
The truthful answer is that I'm really not quite sure why I've become so grounded. Other activities and commitments have taken not only a time precedence to travel, but also a financial one. I've never been a big holiday person, although I've enjoyed work-related travel, and visiting people I know who live abroad. Environmental concerns have played their part, particularly after I visited California (the San Francisco/Berkeley/Santa Cruz and Yosemite areas), but these are by no means the exclusive reasons for my non-travelling, although a convenient excuse these days. I should also say that I now have an extremely low carbon footprint (by over-developed country standards), neither having a car nor, except very infrequently, travelling in other peoples : something I do naturally point out to other people from time to time. However, whilst there are undoubted environmental benefits to my lifestyle, and also personal health and fitness advantages as well, these may not be the main reason for my increasing groundedness. Indeed, I sometimes feel that some spiritual or more deep ecological force may be at work, for the interest and enjoyment I derive from my more local focus has been immense : at least commensurate with the pleasure and stimulation I used to derive from travel. Moreover, I meet lots of people from foreign lands these days in my everyday life, so feel less of a need to visit their countries.
All this said, I do feel the occasional desire to spread my wings again, but then I remember my last budget flight to Ibiza in 1997, or even my business-class return trip from Geneva in 2001, and still seem stubbornly unmotivated to return to the air. Am I just sad ? I really don't know. All this recalls a conversation with London Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2000 (Purple Ken as he was then) who seemed really chuffed to have travelled by helicopter from Brighton to London, when there was some problem on the railways, whilst he criticised me for using a car in the Capital, although on that occasion I actually needed a vehicle for various reasons. So perhaps, unconsciously, in my groundedness I'm a victim of other people's piety, and have unwittingly internalised this somewhere a long the line, losing my will to travel to some voodoo-like force. Interesting thought. Could this be the long and and the short of it all ?
