Age makes a difference between travelers.
I still remember preparing for my very last spring break in college, and very much looking forward to a booze cruise in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico. With my best gal pals, we were young travelers chilling on the beach for days, sipped on margaritas, ate leftover pizza in our hotel room and got dolled up for the clubs at night. We ruled the world, or so we thought.
Thankfully, that was only in my early twenties. A few years later, while some of my friends got married and had babies, I fell madly in love with my freedom. I was ultra adventurous, fiercely independent and loving every minute of life. When I decided to quit a glamorous job for a simple life in Tokyo, it became addicting – living a life that I constantly explained as: a quest to find myself.
A few months in Tokyo turned into a few years in Paris during my late-twenties. The funny thing was, I did find myself. Booze cruise turned into house parties with locals I met at spontaneous events. Margaritas on the beach faded into appreciating the difference between a great bottle of Margeaux and a divine glass of Côtes du Rhône (still my favorite.) The same best gal pals and I still get dolled up, except we’ve swapped meat-market-esque clubs for local dive bars or the newest wine lounge that just opened in the city – whichever city we come to meet from different parts of the world.
Now that I’m in my thirties, traveling is no longer fixated on the excitement of who I am going to meet. But I’m much more interested in who I am with presently. Most of the time, those are the people I love most – my best friends, or my family. Culture has become a prized possession. I’m a jetsetter who has enough Chanel bags and Jimmy Choo shoes, so I now spend money on travels. Really, a great dress is lovely but not without a fantastic Russian ballet to wear it to, or a superb dinner in London to strut it at.
In the past weeks, we published a series of Travel Diaries on Jetset Times. Olivia Molineux shares her reflection from Rio, while both AJ Kiyoizumi and Amanda Purcell recollect their wildly different journeys in Paris as travelers. Although I probably have a good decade on these ladies, but I also decided to share a few photo diaries from Russia, one of the most cherished trips in my thirties thus far.
As expected, I was immensely proud to publish each travel diary. Time has changed. Clearly, a jetsetter is no longer someone who comes from old-money and only travels by yachts and private planes. A modern jetsetter can’t be defined by age or by financial status. “Jetset” has become, not a noun, but a verb: jetsetting. A person who jetsets now refers to someone who lives a hustle-bustle lifestyle, frequently moves around and is always traveling from one country to another.
Throughout my traveling days since eight years old, I’ve always kept a diary. Stories continue to change from country to country, but one single insight that never alters is: I am grateful. And I am glad to sense the same message delivered in every Travel Diary published on this platform. As AJ thoughtfully wrote, through rain and traffic in Versailles, “I realize the decisions that are unplanned are often the ones that reward the most generously.”
None of the labels matter now. Whether you’re a twenty-something or a thirty-something, travelers or a jetsetters; you’re someone who has taken yourself outside of the norm and opened your spirit to an entirely different culture and way of living.
Besides a disgusting scar forever stained on my knee, I don’t regret my last college spring break. Not one bit. Because that’s how it should have been at twenty-one: booze, beach, the lookout for the next great, big story to tell. I’m just glad that ten years later, I can live the next great, big story. Because that story is: now.
Happy Spring Break!
xxx
