Travel Virgins
Created | Updated Jun 6, 2003
Losing My Virginity
Can you remember losing your virginity ? Was it on a school trip, scout camp, or that holiday in North Wales with your parents when you were eleven ? I’m talking travel now, not sex, but there are more similarities than you might think.
Travel brings with it great excitement, but does it also bring a loss of innocence ? The innocent wonder of what it must be like in a far-off land, to walk the streets in a place you’ve only ever seen on TV, or read about in a book. For where do you first find out about sex ? TV and books, of course - Page 83 of your biology text book to be precise.
Nowadays, there’s also the Internet. Travel and sex - probably the two most searched subject areas on the World Wide Web. See, even the name suggests travel.
When you get to your chosen destination, the place you’ve dreamt about for years, spent money to get to and planned meticulously, does it meet your expectations? Or will you regret it in the morning? If not, will you ever think of it in the same way again, now that you’ve been there, done that? Will you go back? Some people go back to the same place over and over again. Does that make them monogamous travellers? I’m a promiscuous traveller myself - preferring to go to pastures new as often as possible.
There are a few exceptions, though. Some destinations attach themselves to you in ways which can be hard to define. It must be Love. Love for what? The view, the climate, the people, the ‘Experience’?
All of the above.
Are you a considerate traveller? Do you think about the needs of your destination? Do you wonder if it was as good for it as it was for you ? Do you care? There are plenty of opportunities these days for you to put something back into the places you visit. To volunteer your effort and time as well as your money. Surely the best type of travel is when both sides get as much out of it?
Of course, you can lose your travel virginity in many ways. In fact, unlike sex, you can lose it over and over again. The first time you leave town. The first time you go abroad. The first time you go without your parents. In fact, for many people, loss of travel virginity and sexual virginity occurs at pretty much the same time - usually in Tenerife.
So what about travel to different cultures? You’ve gained experience in the ways of different people and can take that back with you. You are now a Tantric traveller!
As for so-called ‘Adventure’ Holidays, are they the ultimate travel experience? They certainly require strength and stamina. They may even be a bit kinky. Could trekking in Nepal be considered travel ‘bondage’? There’s a similar amount of pain involved, and they’re both done voluntarily and for pleasure.
Or so I’m told...
It’s obvious that reading travels brochures and watching TV holiday shows is travel Voyeurism, possibly even flirting. So a visit to the Travel Agent must be downright foreplay.
‘Safe’ travel is a big issue nowadays. Years ago, nobody cared. They just went and did it and worried about it later, going home with a dose of something or other.
Now you can get prophylactics against such things. Malaria is therefore the world’s most dangerous travel STD (Stingingly Transmitted Disease).
And, of course, no matter how far you go, how much you do it, how often and who with, you always want more - usually in a far-off land with a faceless bronzed stranger who’s never left town.
Can you remember losing your virginity ? Was it on a school trip, scout camp, or that holiday in North Wales with your parents when you were eleven ? I’m talking travel now, not sex, but there are more similarities than you might think.
Travel brings with it great excitement, but does it also bring a loss of innocence ? The innocent wonder of what it must be like in a far-off land, to walk the streets in a place you’ve only ever seen on TV, or read about in a book. For where do you first find out about sex ? TV and books, of course - Page 83 of your biology text book to be precise.
Nowadays, there’s also the Internet. Travel and sex - probably the two most searched subject areas on the World Wide Web. See, even the name suggests travel.
When you get to your chosen destination, the place you’ve dreamt about for years, spent money to get to and planned meticulously, does it meet your expectations? Or will you regret it in the morning? If not, will you ever think of it in the same way again, now that you’ve been there, done that? Will you go back? Some people go back to the same place over and over again. Does that make them monogamous travellers? I’m a promiscuous traveller myself - preferring to go to pastures new as often as possible.
There are a few exceptions, though. Some destinations attach themselves to you in ways which can be hard to define. It must be Love. Love for what? The view, the climate, the people, the ‘Experience’?
All of the above.
Are you a considerate traveller? Do you think about the needs of your destination? Do you wonder if it was as good for it as it was for you ? Do you care? There are plenty of opportunities these days for you to put something back into the places you visit. To volunteer your effort and time as well as your money. Surely the best type of travel is when both sides get as much out of it?
Of course, you can lose your travel virginity in many ways. In fact, unlike sex, you can lose it over and over again. The first time you leave town. The first time you go abroad. The first time you go without your parents. In fact, for many people, loss of travel virginity and sexual virginity occurs at pretty much the same time - usually in Tenerife.
So what about travel to different cultures? You’ve gained experience in the ways of different people and can take that back with you. You are now a Tantric traveller!
As for so-called ‘Adventure’ Holidays, are they the ultimate travel experience? They certainly require strength and stamina. They may even be a bit kinky. Could trekking in Nepal be considered travel ‘bondage’? There’s a similar amount of pain involved, and they’re both done voluntarily and for pleasure.
Or so I’m told...
It’s obvious that reading travels brochures and watching TV holiday shows is travel Voyeurism, possibly even flirting. So a visit to the Travel Agent must be downright foreplay.
‘Safe’ travel is a big issue nowadays. Years ago, nobody cared. They just went and did it and worried about it later, going home with a dose of something or other.
Now you can get prophylactics against such things. Malaria is therefore the world’s most dangerous travel STD (Stingingly Transmitted Disease).
And, of course, no matter how far you go, how much you do it, how often and who with, you always want more - usually in a far-off land with a faceless bronzed stranger who’s never left town.
