World

The trip that had the biggest impact on me

We asked some of our contributors a pretty simple question:

Which trip which has had the biggest impact on you?

The answers were varied to say the least:

TAYLA GENTLE

Editor

INSTA: @taylaroxene

My first time overseas is definitely up there for impact. I moved to Guatemala when I was 19 (sorry mum!) and it was there that I learnt very serious things—like the extent of my own privilege; and other less serious but still important travel things—like how to sleep on a chicken bus, how not to drink tequila, the difference between a good tortilla and a perfect tortilla, and the beauty of a shared Caribbean sunrise.

TIM McGLONE

Deputy Editor

INSTA: @mcglone.jpg

I was once sent on a trip to cover a newly opened hot spring experience in Victoria's east. My partner couldn’t come so I hoofed it solo. The springs were beautiful—you can read about them in issue seven of get lost—but the biggest impact came courtesy of the people in the tented-pod next to me, who had the absolute NIGHT OF THEIR LIVES. I mean ooft, they were really going at it. And this impacted my view of this specific kind of travel: never go glamping in a romantic location by yourself, or bring noise-cancelling headphones if you do.

LAURA WATERS

Contributor

INSTA: @laurawaters_writer

It was always going to be an adventure, but I had no idea when I set out to hike New Zealand’s Te Araroa Trail that it would end up changing my life. Those 3,000km of gnarly but utterly spectacular trail—across mountains, forests, rivers and beach—taught me I was capable of far more than I realised. I came home, quit my corporate job, and chased a long-held dream of being a writer and author.

BEN McNAMARA

Contributor

INSTA: @thisisbenemac

"Don’t sit behind the driver. If he gets shots, it will go through you. It’s best to sit in the middle seat”. I used to dream of working in a war-zone and a few years back, that dream turned into an adrenaline-fuelled, very surreal reality in Kabul. We'd drive past military posts and roads full of shelled pot-holes. American helicopters could be heard overhead moving diplomats from temporary homes to embassies. I’m from the Melbourne suburbs…everything about Kabul was strange. The personal adventure was brilliant, but the brutality of existence in an unfair place like Afghanistan was not.

ROBERTO SERRINI

Our Man on the Ground

INSTA: @serrini

My time in the off-grid village of Anuk Lang in Cambodia was life changing. Coming from NYC where everything is available 24/7 to then experiencing what life is like without signal, without noise, without exterior influence—just bathing in community and family—gave me a unique perspective on life. Now no matter where I go, no matter how exotic or extravagant, I remember my time there, and try to always find that truth in the experience at hand.