Places to Go

November 14, 2007

Photo: Flickr/Teseum

I was 22 when I embarked on my first proper traveling trip in Europe: the ‘Top Deck Highlights of Europe’ tour. It was an organized trip; 16 days, taking in cities like Amsterdam, Munich, Salzburg, Florence, Nice and Paris. Now let me dispel any visions you might have of a coach-load of pink-haired ladies and obese, tweed-wearing men. No. ‘Top Deck’ trips were the preserve of young, drunken, hedonistic Aussies and Kiwis on their European walkabout (I was the token Irish guy). It was on this jaunt that I learnt of the live-for-the-moment attitude of the typical traveling ANZAC. In fact by the end of the trip I had probably learnt as much about Oz and N.Z. as I had about Europe.

It would be two years before I would travel in Europe again. I did go to Italy in the intervening year but that was for the 1990 soccer world cup. My wanderlust would have to wait. As a wise man once said: “Football’s not a matter of life and death; it’s much more important than that.”

It was in the summer of 1991 that I found myself enjoying a few beers with a group of backpackers in a bar in Luxembourg. One of them, a guy from Melbourne, was on a two-year round-the-world trip. When I heard that, I realized that life doesn’t have to be about the 9 to 5, year in year out, snatching a couple of weeks of holidays, if the boss will let you. I thought it would be instructive to ask the Uber-traveler which were the most striking places he had visited.

The Pyramids of Mexico, he said, and the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. His first choice was truly exotic; vast, enigmatic structures built under the searing sun of Mexico thousands of years before the old world knew anything of the Americas. His second choice didn’t seem nearly so exotic. The Giant’s Causeway is a coastal area composed of interlocking rock columns with regular shapes. It’s unusual, yes, but it couldn’t be that impressive. After all it was little more that 100 miles from where I lived? Well the Uber-traveler had called it as he saw it and so I resolved that one day I’d go to both places.

Since that time I’ve seen a bit of the world, including Australia and New Zealand, the strange far-off lands that were first described to me during 16 drunken ‘Highlights of Europe’ nights. I’ve also been to the Pyramids of Egypt, though I haven’t yet been to their mysterious cousins in Mexico. I’m determined to go there though and, you never know; one day I might just hop in my car and drive to the Giant’s Causeway.

About the Author : Joe Mc Kiernan was born in 1967 in Dublin, Ireland and lived much of his life there. During the 1990s he travelled extensively in over 30 countries in 6 continents. His twin passions are travel and writing and much of his writing relates to his experiences abroad and the people he met on the road. He has written a novel ‘Here’s to the Primary Colours’ for which he is seeking a publisher. It concerns three backpackers who meet and become friends on a plane bound for Sydney, Australia.

The TSM Fall Travel Writing Contest has been organized in association with On The Beach Holidays