Ithaka was the island home of the legendary Greek hero, Odysseus. After his involvement in the Trojan War, Odysseus spent ten years wandering. During those ten years he had adventures, underwent numerous tests of his courage and arrived home a different person. Constantine P. Cavafy wrote a poem about Odysseus' experience, celebrating the joy of the journey. Cavafy's poem has always been important to me and has guided me as I, too, adventure.
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
***
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony.
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
***
ithaka is always on my mind. i have eternal wanderlust. as such, i travel a lot. and i love to share my stories about my experiences. some may be helpful, others entertaining, hopefully none are boring. when i travel, i like to get to know the place and the people (and the food!). i rarely have checklists of things to do and don’t overplan much. information is good but so is getting lost in a new place and trying to find your way out.
i am not trying to see everything. rather, i am trying to really get to know the places i visit. so, i usually hit the favorites on more than one occasion. or, i find an excuse to live there for a long or short time. the following places will get mentioned at some point, some more than others:
usa (chicago, cleveland, nyc, LA, new orleans, sf)
greece (athens, islands, northern greece, arcadia)
japan (yokohama, tokyo, hokkaido, osaka, hiroshima, okinawa, kamakura, kyoto)
argentina (buenos aires)
england (london, countryside)
italy (florence/fiesole/tuscany, venice/verona, rome, amalfi coast)
france (paris, giverny)
mexico (yucatan)
canada (toronto)
netherlands (amsterdam)
sri lanka (colombo, beaches, kandy)
india (mumbai)
scotland (edinborough)
china (beijing, xian, shanghai)
korea (seoul)
recently, my stories have become more about everyday life. our journey necessarily involves such experiences that inform who we are for better or worse. acknowledging these experiences and writing through them has helped me and i hope they are as equally interesting as posts about treks around the world.
