It’s happened. We’re lost in Pompeii.
Okay, I’m exaggerating. We’re not really lost. If the little blue dot on my phone is telling the truth, we know exactly where we are. The problem, though, is that we can’t figure out how to leave. Each time we follow the suggested route and find an exit, it’s closed.
Every new road leads to a new dead end. Every new road looks the same. The sun is getting low. And our train to Naples leaves in twenty five minutes.
Things started out normally. My niece Megan and I enjoyed our day exploring the ruins. We had a chilly picnic lunch and stared out in awe at the surreal landscape of Pompeii. We even made our way to the train station an hour ahead of time, figuring we’d pop into a restaurant for a coffee or a cup of tea.
But when we arrived at the train station, something was off. Something was wrong.
As I scanned the departure board, I noticed that our train wasn’t listed. Was it canceled? Was there some sort of delay?
“This isn’t the station from this morning,” Megan said.
Turns out, there’s more than one train station in Pompeii. When we tried to ask the man at the information desk for directions, he barked: “Other company. Turn right. Two kilometers.”
Not a big deal. Walking two kilometers in an hour is nothing. Plenty of time. The problem, though, is that when I mapped the way, my phone insisted that the only route that would lead us to the correct station meant that we’d have to walk back through Pompeii. Where there were, quite literally, no exits but the one guiding us back to the wrong train station.
In the end, with only fifteen minutes until departure, a string of obscenities flying from my mouth (welcome to adulthood, Megan) I made the executive decision to just buy new tickets at the other station and hope that the alternate train would get us to Naples in time to catch our connecting train back to Rome.
It was Megan’s first trip abroad. The whole week I couldn’t help but be a bit jealous of that, jealous of her excitement, jealous of the many firsts she’d be experiencing, and jealous of the things, things both big and small, that she’d be noticing. I imagine that sounds odd, given that I’ve been traveling for more than seven months and having plenty of experiences of my own. But still, that first trip is everything.
It made me think of my own first trip abroad as an adult. My friend April and I did the backpack-through-Europe thing after our first year of graduate school, and damn, were we clueless.
It didn’t help that April and I are both tall girls, and we had borrowed enormous external-framed packs to lug around too-much stuff; then, our well-traveled friends insisted that we needed to wear hiking boots, but because we were broke grad students we had to hit the clearance sales and wound up buying identical leather boots that made our feet look like footballs.
We were giants.
In a museum in Germany, we had to cover our shoes with felt slippers, and we amused ourselves by taking photos of our big feet, conveniently ignoring everything around us. The first time we tried to board a train, we couldn’t even fit through the doorway. We found it all hilarious.
Our cluelessness meant that we had no goals, no plan. We didn’t have cell phones or laptops. We didn’t even call home (though I’m certain I sent a postcard or two). We only had a guide book, a rail pass, and a mind thirsty for adventure. We knew so little, but even so, every moment was awesome.
I don’t remember much about the sites we saw or the museums we went to (other than that one time when we posed like statues in the Louvre; we probably weren’t supposed to be doing that). What I do remember are the people we met, people from all around the world, whether for a few days or a few hours; how intoxicating everything was; and the sense of freedom we discovered along the way.
I traveled for six weeks, two of them alone, and most of my memories aren’t about the things you’d find in a guidebook. Instead, my fondest memories are riding a moped in the sunshine on an island in Greece, eating bruschetta with a bunch of Australians (though we didn’t even know what bruschetta was, so we just called it “tomato bread”), clutching scoops of gelato with a handsome Italian in Florence, singing the theme song to The Facts of Life while strolling through Paris, getting lost trying to find my hostel in Dresden and jumping on a train to Munich because that seemed simpler than trying to get found, lying side-by-side with a Costa Rican in the middle of a football field in Prague.
I wanted Megan’s first trip to flow smoothly, in part because I’m a bit of a protective auntie and in part because this was our first time hanging out just the two of us since she’s started college. But more than anything I wanted her to see that travel could take her to the unexpected corners of a place.
I’m happy, though, that we had a couple of glitches along the way so that she could experience some of the challenges of independent travel. Travel, even well-planned travel, isn’t ever going to be perfect, there’s always going to be unforseen hurdles, and I wanted her to know that these small disasters are a part of the adventure.
Sidebar: Megan thought getting lost in Pompeii was fun, read the map well, and even offered to use my phone to navigate our way to the train station while running unfamiliar streets (I shot that idea down immediately — this isn’t The Amazing Race, Megan).
Tell me, what do you remember about your first trip abroad?
There’s nothing like that first time! I remember the first time I bought a plane ticket with my very own money. It was to visit friends in Mexico City. I had all my babysitting money in my pocket and gave it all to Ted, the family travel agent. Just me. My mom wasn’t even with me. I felt so grown and so free! I was 16, and really neither of those things. But I could taste it. (Mexico City was a blast, btw. Spent the whole time dancing, watching Madonna on MTV, and flirting with boys.)
Oh yes! You’ve told me about this trip! This reminds me of the first time I bought an airline ticket — I was 18, and my roommate and I had to pay cash for our tickets, so I got a friend and borrowed a car, and we drove from Las Cruces to the airport in El Paso to pay for the tickets. It was probably only around $300 for two tickets to California, but at the time it felt like such a fortune! I was scared to be carrying that much cash with me.
Still, like you said, it felt so grown up and liberating (even though I was barely a grown up and hadn’t a clue what that meant). I did it all without help from my parents.
My first trip abroad was on an “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” tour that stopped in a different town every night. Having read every guide book and every forum I was armed with all this off the beaten path info. This was the beginning of internet forums and the “tree” looked like post cards, literally.
Every time we stopped some place I would invariably lose the tour group to go find something more interesting and would meet up with them later and be asked all sorts of questions.
At one point, I became so tired of the typical that I almost cause a mutiny in Lucerne where I really didn’t care about the statue of the dying Lion in honor of the Swiss guard that died protecting Marie Antoinette. It wasn’t moving. It was cheesy. I wanted to see the lake and walk around after being on the bus for so long.
I have loads of wonderful memories of standing in the middle of Piazza San Marco listening to the bells ring. And finding that mask maker who helped me pick out something special. Then getting lost in Paris trying to walk from the Eiffel tower to the Musee D’Orsay along the Seine because it didn’t look far on the map. And having lunch on a terrace at the Uffizi with some birds and the Florentine rooftops shining in the sunlight.
I don’t regret missing Pisa, or where ever they were ending up in Paris (I think it was a bus tour). I don’t regret missing the diamond cutting in Amsterdam, or the glassblowing in Venice.
I do regret being so cranky and exhausted I bowed out of the town party at Emploli and going to bed like an old lady.
But all in all, it made me fall in love with being alone while traveling.
(Note-I took my niece on a trip for her HS graduation, to Seattle. We made weird memories too)
Ha! “If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium.” That’s a good way to describe it. I know that there may be a time and a place where I do a tour like that, but for now — for me — I much prefer doing things on my own (plus I tend to operate at such a slow pace — I can’t fathom being up at 6 a.m. and going until 11 p.m. every day. I need time to sit on a bench and stare into nothing).
I’m fine with traveling with other people, though I most commonly travel alone, but even with others I enjoy the freedom of independent travel and having to figure out how to plan things on my own (or with my friend/family member). There’s a feeling of accomplishment that comes with it that is just as important as seeing the whatever might be on the tour’s agenda.
Funny but I’m going to Bhutan this summer with a friend, and we’re required to hire a guide (you can’t even go into the country as a traveler without one). I know it’ll be fine, but it is such a different experience, letting someone else do things.
Love these memories. And yes, it is quite a trek from the Eiffel Tower to d’Orsay!
You’re going to Bhutan??? So jealous! When I had the chance (as in I was right nearby, in Nepal), I looked at the per-day cost (designed to keep backpackers out, basically) and decided it was too much. Now I wish I’d just bitten the bullet and done it!
Yes! A friend and I have wanted to go ever since we started teaching The Geography of Bliss. It’s so costly, but this is the year (in fact, I was just emailing the tour guide company, right before I popped over here!) First Nepal, then Bhutan, then….?
Things I remember from the really early days:
Going from Edinburgh (where I was studying) to London (where my friend was studying) and meeting two Swedish backpackers, both women, on the train. I was in awe of their backpacks (I still had a duffel bag; it had never occurred to me that backpacks were for anything but camping), which were enormous and had all sorts of things hanging off them: hiking boots, mugs, water bottles… I vowed I would be like them someday.
Spring break trip to France, same semester, same friend who was studying in London. We’d been on organized trips before, or on trips with our parents, but neither of us had ever traveled independently, without an agenda. That’s what we set out to do — and we hated it. We were at loose ends, miserable, not wanting to do touristy things, but not knowing what to do it we didn’t. We eventually figured out that the cold rain of France in April was messing with us, so we got on a train to Rome, and soon we were sitting in the park eating gelato — and that’s when I felt I’d figured out travel.
I love that your niece got that quintessential experience of Things Gone Wrong with you! Honestly, those are the things I remember, long after the famous sights and beautiful scenery has faded in my mind. Sitting at the side of the road, trying to communicate in not-my-language while waiting for yet another long-distance bus breakdown to be fixed…that was the life! I miss it.
I do like it now that I have a reliable source of income that I can travel a bit more “upscale” — no more sleeping in a ball at the foot of my bed in a $3/night room in China where the shower head aims at the floor and not the tub (not that you’d want to step into the tub as it’d never been cleaned).
But I’m happy that I can still find moments of that same freedom I had when I was young. I hope that feeling never goes away. I love your stories here — both the discovery of backpacking culture (who knew?) and the realization that when you’re traveling independently, you can go anywhere. That’s what I loved about the rail pass; if something went wrong, you could just jump on a train to somewhere else, anywhere else that the train would take you.
Memory of my first traveling adventure alone was actually with my Spanish teacher and six classmates—girls. I was fifteen or sixteen. We went to Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico by Greyhound bus—a trip of two and a half days. I loved everything about the adventure—the food, the language, the culture, the people, the sights. I have been an insatiable viajante from then till now. My next BIG adventure will be forty-four days in Seville, Spain for Spanish language immersion next September.
Wow, that immersion sounds fantastic! I would love to do something like that. And my stepson and his girlfriend just did a post about Seville on their gap-year travel blog, and it looks gorgeous. Lucky you!
Right, Karen? My mom is a badass! Some year I think I’ll do an immersion in a smaller city or village in France so that I can actually build my language skills. I did learn a lot, but it’s so difficult when most people respond in English.
Oh, I love this post! I’m so glad it wasn’t perfect… Your trip to Pompeii I mean. I’m guessing a lot of your trips aren’t perfect. I remember having such fun traveling with you, Except for the little fight we got into, which meant my going to Austria and you traveling on to France. But I remember that finally, that whole trip, and I wouldn’t have wanted to take it with anyone else.
I don’t think any trip is perfect, and I like that. Even our little fight, as horrible as it was in the moment, I think led to us becoming better friends because we got to know another side of each other (plus it led to our “double date” in Florence 😉 )
I wouldn’t have wanted to take that trip with anyone else, either — xo