Leaving the comfort of our home environment to fulfil an urge to travel, does not rank highly on everyone’s priority list. So why do some people fall in love with travel and others don’t? I can only talk from personal experience and recall that my love of travel was something embedded into me as a child. I grew up with camping holidays around the UK with a large family.
As a child standing next to our camper van
My parents both had a mutual love of the outdoors and travel. During my mum’s childhood, she was frequently exploring the great outdoors which started from family day trips and camping. Throughout the years, my mum’s passion for travel continued to increase .Two years ago, when I travelled with her to South America, it was evident that we both shared a similar love of travelling and that subconsciously, she had passed that passion onto me.
My dad grew up in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown. As a young adult, he left his city life to spend long periods of time in the jungle, living and surviving in the animal’s kingdom, adjusting well to a completely new environment. Growing up, dad would tell stories about how to kill an alligator, you would need to run in a circle to break its back. There was also the showing of a snake bite on his leg, adding to the thrill of living in the jungle. My dad became a taxi driver in the 1970’s and the taxi was initially used as transportation for our holidays to various parts of the UK.
As our family grew to 7, my parents bought an original Volkswagen Camper van where we would spend our holidays camping in places such as North Wales and the South West of England. I have happy memories of these times even though I was innocently young enough to not be aware of the occasional prejudice my parents witnessed during these trips. It was apparently quite unusual to see a black family camping and travelling around the UK.
Growing up in Brent, North West London, my school was very diverse and I had friends who were born in many different countries. At school we learned about different religions, cultures and food, and all of these things implanted a curiosity to explore the world. I recall having books at home on Ancient Egypt and the USA and as young as 6 years old, I would flip through the pictures of the Egyptian pyramids with awe, announcing to my family that I would be going there one day.
Aged 10, our family immigrated to Brooklyn, New york and this was the first time I had ever left the country. Thrown into a completely new world, I was slowly falling in love with planes, new experiences and learning what the world had to offer outside of North West London.
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