The world is inspiration in itself. Being brave is simply a result of trying to be a part of the world you’re in and not hiding in your comfort zone. It takes a real amazing place, however, to make you feel as though you’ve never left, and yet allows you the freedom you inevitably receive when you do something completely and utterly new. Franz Josef to me is that place. This wild assumption, as I haven’t seen even half of the world yet, hasn’t stopped me from continually searching for and craving something new. But that is not a choice, it is, as far as I can tell, just a basic instinct that will never disappear.
New Zealand was the one place that I have traveled to that has allowed me to relax like no other, that inspired me to not think of the fact that I was over 14,000 miles from my home for a year for the first time in my adult life. This wild country beyond all others, provided me with a cushion. It satiated my appetite for nature, adventure and friends and didn’t overwhelm me with the realization of what I had just decided to do. It was Franz Josef in particular on the west coast of New Zealand to which, from now on, I compare all my travels. Can you imagine living in a place that has an ocean, a glacier, a rainforest and mountains all within your grasp? To me, it was a place that for the 5 months I lived there, despite being a housekeeper to a backpacker accommodation where the idea of ‘cleanliness’ was a very grey area, I was still able to fully take in the nature and be inspired. I could look around me and know for a fact that I would never be somewhere as stunning as that again, that this feeling of inspiration that I received simply by walking out my front door each day would never fulfill me like Franz Josef had done. It was a bittersweet realization. And also one that perhaps doesn’t give the rest of the world enough credit, to think I had peaked three years ago when I went to New Zealand.
Franz Josef is a township that boasts 350 people. Maybe 400 on a good day. It is a place that tourists come for a few hours, one night at most and then disappear. They reach the peak of what they can do there with a helicopter trip up the glacier, and then a drink at one of the four pubs. It’s not a place that many call home for any length of time, that so the relationship that exists with one’s co-workers is such a community that I had never felt before. It inspired me to stop worrying. It inspired me to stop double-checking whether or not I had my money pouch around my neck. It let me stop looking over my shoulder and gripping my bag tightly as I walked home alone. It was a place to exist, for you to exist, on your own.
Every place I have been has inspired me to be brave. Maybe these places encouraged me to be. No, actually they forced me to. It wasn’t an option. I have to travel. If traveling was a conscious decision I made, I wouldn’t have left my home in the first place. No matter where you are in the world, when you’re travelling to a new place, you have to be brave. Start with that one foot out the front door, that one border crossing that almost didn’t let you through, that leap from a plane, praying to any sort of deity that the parachute will work, and end with being so blown away by your surroundings that you completely forget that you’re falling. That is inspiration in itself. It’s the bravery of leaving that created the inspiration, not the other way around. You’ve done it. You’re completely frightened, but you’ve done it. It’s not the place that inspires me to be brave, it’s the leaving in the first place.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
