Finding the terroir in travel
I have a confession. I am an oyster-fiend. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down an opportunity to eat oysters, especially a glass of wine is also on the cards.
Funnily enough, my two favourite indulgences led me to an “ahah!” moment.
For a long time, I’ve wondered “Why do I love to travel?” I was sitting at a bar in New York, lingering over a glass of cava some Washington coast oysters when I realised where the magic lies.
Wine and oysters are both heavily influenced by the earth or oceans that they come from, with nuanced flavours varying even within a few miles. This factor is called the terroir. It’s a term associated with wine snobs, but you’ll have to forgive me because it’s the best word I can find to describe what I’m looking for when I travel.
What I love about travel is the effect that the destination’s terroir has on your experiences. It’s the symphony of traffic and screeching horns in New York compared to the laughter and jazz music wafting through the streets of New Orleans. It’s how walking through an Australian beach town will never feel like walking along the promenade of the French Riviera, and I love them both for it. It’s that it doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you’re ducking into a café or bar hidden in a Melbourne laneway, you’ll be experiencing the city the way it was meant to be experienced.
Experiential travel that embodies the terroir of each destination. This is what drives me to travel.
The best places to sniff out a destination’s “terroir” really depend on the place. Sometimes it is in the remote mountains, other times it’s in a crowded market. Sometimes it means fine dining and most of the time I find it means local cuisine at reasonable prices. Sometimes it means wineries and other times it means live music and shows. Sometimes it means art galleries and museums, some times it means lazy days wandering or lounging around. Sometimes it means club-hopping and boutique shopping, other times it means long walks, sitting around in cafes doodling in my notebook or wandering amongst ancient ruins.
There are no one-size-fits-all rules for terroir-focused travel.
The world feels smaller. I want to make it feel big again.
Globalisation makes the world feel small. When I travel focusing on experiences that root me in my destination I am overwhelmed by just how big the world is and how much more there is to see.
I love Netflix, Spotify and a cheeky treat at Shake Shack as much as the next person, but I find that if you can get it anywhere, it’s not giving you as much. There’s something special about the experiences that aren’t replicated for millions to consume all over the world.
It’s why I blew my budget shopping in markets tiny, niche boutiques in Europe, buying beautiful Florentine paper at Papiro in Florence, perfume and shoes in Paris and a marble chess set at a board games shop in Athens, but hardly spent any money shopping at the hyped-up department stores in New York. It’s why I don’t regard a restaurant highly for simply being expensive but would rather go to a place that has woven itself into the city’s cultural fabric.
It’s important to seek these experiences when you travel, but also when you’re at home. On this blog, you’ll find content from around the world and Australia, including plenty of content from Melbourne, where I live.
Travelling like this supports local talent, economies and culture while also lets you dive into exactly where you are.
Travelling with an open heart, open mind and engaged senses.
The world can’t afford for us to keep drifting around life half-asleep or so preoccupied with our own lives that we’re numb to everything around us. We have one precious life, so can any of us afford to be zoned out? Modern life is stressful which is why experiential travel, whether it is overseas or down the road, is a breath of fresh air. It provides the perfect opportunity to reconnect with where you are, who you’re with and most importantly, with yourself.
To me, mindful travel means travelling with an open heart, an open mind and engaged senses. It’s hard to notice the special details of life in London when you’re stressing out over sightseeing lists and navigating without getting lost. I should know, because I’ve made that mistake myself.
None of us are human guidebooks to the world. You don’t have to see everywhere. Guidebooks and the Internet have kind of done that for us, and this time making the world smaller is a blessing. I can enjoy reading and learning about parts of the world I won’t have time to go to, so I can focus on enjoying the places I do go to, deeply and fully, without the dreaded “fear of missing out.”
Celebrating the power of stories
The Wanderbug is designed to inform, inspire and entertain. Itineraries, budgets, lists and guides are useful and I share them to take some of the headaches out of travel or to give you ideas of where to start.
These things are useful, but stories are the lifeblood of this blog.
My aim is to write stories that you’ll find enjoyable even if you don’t have plans to visit the destination – and if the story changes your mind, that’s just an added bonus! Stories that can be enjoyed by anyone are so much more valuable to me than plain old listicles, itineraries and budgets.
