Some of the pleasures of leaving your home and traveling to Somewhere are your encounters with the new, the unexpected and the strange. Why else travel? During her long life, the British explorer Freya Stark (1893-1993) traveled to many Somewheres. The following words appear in her Baghdad Sketches, 1932:
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes.”
Whether you tiptoe one step at a time into the stream or leap into it with a big splash, your acceptance of “whatever comes” is crucial to living in the Somewhere. But often, especially if you travel alone, you may find that, in addition to to being surrounded by adventure, you also carry your aloneness, the awareness of being a stranger. Natives may welcome you, but you are still someone from somewhere else.
