Born to Travel

I often wonder where my love of travelling comes from, and the only conclusion I arrive at is that it's a mix of my family history and being a New Zealander.

I only exist because of travel. My father travelled from New Zealand to the UK in the 1960's and that's where he and my mother met. Then they both went back to New Zealand, travelling for a month on a ship as most people did then, and I arrived a couple years later - 18 months after they were married, it should be noted. :-)

The family history of travel however goes back a hundred years earlier. My mother is a keen genealogist, so I know that different parts of my father's family tree emigrated to New Zealand from various parts of the UK in the 1860's and 1870's. There may even have been some who chose to settle in Australia, not to be confused with the Brits who were forced to settle in Australia.

Like most people I find Air Travel extremely tedious and wish there was a faster way of getting to destinations. It's a struggle therefore to comprehend the month long sea journeys my parents made, and the 19th Century journeys of my Great-Great-Grandparents defy comprehension completely. The journey must have been incredible, and they didn't even know anything about their destination. True pioneers.

Growing up in New Zealand was definitely a factor as well. Learning a t a young age of the exploits of the late Sir Edmund Hillary was a factor. Not just Mt Everest, but also treks to the South Pole and many other destinations.

New Zealand's remoteness from the rest of the world is also a factor. Australia is a long way from most of the world, yet most of Western Europe would fit in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, so we are even more remote.

It's natural therefore to be intrigued by how and where other cultures live, as well as wildlife in other parts of the world.

Maybe that explains why at any given time 20% of New Zealanders are living or travelling in other countries, a statistic I definitely intend to continue contributing to.


Andrew