I’m not much of a tem­ple type of gal. Sure, there’s plenty of beauty in the dec­o­ra­tive roofs, sculp­tures that aim to ward off evil spir­its, and they tiny cor­ri­dors scented with cen­turies of burnt incense in Asia’s finest tem­ples. But to be com­pletely hon­est, once I’ve seen one tem­ple, I’ve seen them all.

When I was lit­tle, we would take fam­ily trips all over the world. I remem­ber get­ting dragged around to the Smith­son­ian Muse­ums in D.C., the Chang Kai Shek Memo­r­ial in Taipei, the Vienna Boys Choir in Aus­tria, the Bran­den­berg Gate in Berlin, and the weird lit­tle Dan­ish Shoppes in Solvang, Cal­i­for­nia. Am I really com­plain­ing about doing all these amaz­ing things? Of course.

My sis­ter and I pos­ing for our par­ents in front of a museum or memorial

Taipei, Tai­wan, sum­mer of.…1992?

I com­plain now, only because I can finally admit my par­ents were right. They, like they always have, knew what was best for me. Yes, I have finally come to appre­ci­ate all those fam­ily trips that inter­fered with my child­hood sum­mers at the com­mu­nity pool and with the “cool­ness” of my teenage years (or, so I’d like to think). Not only was I able to see some of the world and con­quer decrease my fear no longer be mor­tally afraid of fly­ing, but I began devel­op­ing my appetite for travel on these fam­ily vaca­tions. I heard dif­fer­ent lan­guages, expe­ri­enced dif­fer­ent cul­tures, and tasted dif­fer­ent foods.

I learned how to go to bed at an early hour and wake up at the break of dawn, ready for a full day of activ­ity. I learned how to sit in a car for 14 hours at a time, though I was never able to make my blad­der do the same. I learned to prep a binder full of itin­er­aries, maps, reser­va­tion con­fir­ma­tions, and emer­gency con­tact num­bers (thanks, Dad). I learned how to make my hotel room bed and clean up before house­keep­ing arrived– some­thing that though I think is com­pletely crazy, I still do today (thanks, Mom). I learned that some­times, peo­ple who love each other tremen­dously fight fiercely.

I know some friends who, like my par­ents, have these reg­i­mented styles of travel. They book trips far in advance and plan out every hour of their days. Other friends are all adven­ture, all the time. They scale moun­tains and cliffs and tackle rough oceans in kayaks. Then there are the fancier of our friends who like to stay at fancy resorts equipped with fancy infin­ity pools and fancy out­door show­ers, those who lounge on white sand beaches and come home beau­ti­fully bronzed, not a sun­burnt spot on their evenly tanned skins. Some friends have check­lists they like to accom­plish when they travel, while oth­ers have just one vow: to fin­ish a book or two.

Since I’ve ven­tured out on my own, my travel styles have sig­nif­i­cantly relaxed from the jam-packed travel sched­ules from my youth. Admit­tedly, some­times I feel guilty about this. I feel that I should be see­ing more and doing more and get­ting up ear­lier. You know, see­ing more tem­ples and stuff. But in the least two years, with each trip that I’ve taken, I’ve come to real­ize that my own style of travel works to accom­plish an impor­tant thing, and that’s to re-affirm a lifestyle filled with happy moments and sim­ple pleasures.

When the Diplo­Man and I travel, we visit maybe one or two of the tourist sights, and spend the rest of our time see­ing the city and expe­ri­enc­ing the sim­ple plea­sures in life. Mean­ing, we walk around, explor­ing dark alley­ways and pop­ping into intrigu­ing antique stores. We stop for a drink at a respectable-looking bar or a shanty local tea house. We eat snacks when we’re hun­gry and skip meals when we’re not. We rent cars or mopeds or bikes and speed around rice pad­dies and coun­try back­roads. We get lost– a lot. And given the loca­tion, we prefer­ably squeeze in a snor­kel­ing trip. We talk a lot about our hopes and ideas, about dreams of learn­ing to sail, liv­ing in Africa, and turn­ing writ­ing into a career (one is his, one is mine, and one is ours– I’ll let you guess which is whose).

Many cou­ples I know have sim­i­lar travel styles– and the Diplo­Man and I are one of those cou­ples. I’m lucky to have found a part­ner who I can see and eat and expe­ri­ence won­der­ful things with. After all, the cou­ple that trav­els together stays together.

But there is one thing that I love to do that, though the Diplo­Man duti­fully will tag along, isn’t on his travel radar. That one thing is to seek out a local mar­ket. Ide­ally, it’s an out­door mar­ket, and ide­ally it will sell pre­pared foods as well as fresh pro­duce and fruits. But really, I’m not too picky. Give me the super­mar­ket; the equiv­a­lent of that country’s Safe­way store, and I’d be happy comb­ing through the bak­ing aisle and see­ing what intrigu­ing potato chip fla­vors are stocked on the shelves. Or it could be the local cor­ner store, where I can see what type of cheap instant cof­fee the locals like. The lit­tle fruit stand works for me too– this way, I can get a fresh juice while I take in the sweet smells of sea­sonal mel­ons and lychees. Frankly, any­where where the pur­veyance of fruits, veg­eta­bles, dried and canned goods, and weird local prod­ucts are sold, those places are as good as gold. To me, this is where I expe­ri­ence my travel rush.

Recently on Cup of Jo I read about the idea of cou­ples spend­ing a day apart dur­ing trav­els, doing their own thing. I loved this idea. And while the tim­ing and our sim­i­lar inter­ests won’t always allow us to do so, it worked out per­fectly one morn­ing in Phuket. On our last morn­ing in town, the Diplo­Man slept in and caught up on some of his news­pa­pers, while I set out to get a pedi­cure and visit the local mar­ket that I had been eye­ing for some time.

The mar­ket was amaz­ing. The Thai peo­ple have such an inter­est­ing array of fresh pro­duce and chilis and cur­ries. After being in China for so long, it was refresh­ing to see the pro­duce of another coun­try. There were stacks of limes– a rar­ity in China. There were more vari­eties of egg­plants than I’ve ever seen before in my life, lit­tle round knobs of egg­plant next to egg­plants the size and shape of my fin­gers. Strings of flow­ers and sheets of banana leaf were being sold in the aisles, and crates of fresh shell­fish– clams and shrimps– were being stacked on iced palettes.

The Thai like to use small air-filled plas­tic bags, tied with tiny rub­ber bands, to pack­age much of their pro­duce that had already been por­tioned out. I can’t say exactly why, but I was enam­ored with this.

I loved my morn­ing at the mar­ket, and was thrilled to be able to take some time on vaca­tion to do some­thing I was gen­uinely happy to do. After all, that’s what trav­el­ling is all about, isn’t it? Ulti­mately, it’s not how many things you saw or being able to boast about how many places you’ve been. It’s about being able to sat­isfy the sim­plest of plea­sures, see some­thing enjoy­able, and truly expe­ri­enc­ing hap­pi­ness within.

What is your travel style? Have you found YOUR travel nir­vana yet?

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