My Favorite Element About Travel

Post About Element of Travel or Writing

            

One aspect of travel that interests me in both a positive and negative way is the unknown—or essentially, whatever unknown factors can potentially happen on the trip, or mishaps.           

The great thing about mishaps is that they make for great story. One moment you have nothing to write about and boom! You now suddenly have pages and pages of story all because of one incident. 

If something bad happens to another person, I’m not saying that writers feel a schadenfreude joyousness, but happy that they can use their writing skills to help others by making it a story, or in other instances, happy to inform their audience or at least entertain others.             

The bad thing about mishaps is that they can ruin your day or harm you financially. For instance, when I recently used the UPMC garage in Pittsburgh, one of the pay stations wouldn’t accept my credit card. So I tried the other one. Guess what? That one didn’t work. There was an ATM machine nearby so that I could get cash to use instead; I didn’t enter the amount in twenty dollar increments, so I had to try again. Do you want to guess what happened when I went to try again? The machine was suddenly and magically out of order. So I pressed the button for the security guard who told me to use the pay station in the garage.                                                                     

I hope I don’t have to tell you to guess what happens next. If you guessed that the pay station wouldn’t work, then you are correct! So I had to call the security guard to let me out—he seemed pretty bothered by it, and he told me the routine and mechanized, “I am sorry for your inconvenience,” or something like that.                                                                                                          

The janitor I spoke to while waiting thirty minutes to try and figure out what to do, told me that the machine charged his credit card three times. When I looked at my bank statement the next day, I saw it was charged twice. So I looked for a number online, left two voicemails for two different people, and hoped the statements would be removed.                                                                 

Fortunately, they were removed without any phone calls (not sure how that works).                       

Lesson learned? Bring cash if you’re going to use a pay station.                                                            

But the unknown can be exciting too. What’s going to happen next? Will my phone die and instead of using my G.P.S., will I have to consult an old-fashioned map or, god forbid, ask for directions?   

Will I find a cool new restaurant or place that I’d love to go to next time?                                      

The unknown, or the journey itself, is always one of my favorite parts about traveling, because, like Ralph Waldo Emerson once famously said, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”             

Live in the moment. Don’t live for the destination.