Globe Corner Blogs

You’ve spent weeks, months, or even years planning your trip.  You’ve fantasized about lazy vacation days on a Caribbean beach, slathered in suntan oil instead of wrapped up in scarves.  You’ve spent long afternoons at work mulling over hotel deals and airfare to that remote South Pacific island where you can throw out your wool socks and throw on a sarong, all the while appearing, of course, to the eyes of prying bosses to be diligently at work.  Maybe you’ve elaborately mapped out a European museum spree, complete with pastry breaks and espresso stops.  Or perhaps you’ve spent your weekends training for a thrilling, perilous trek up a snow-capped Himalayan peak, interviewing sherpas and depriving yourself of oxygen.

But now you’re back.  You’ve taken several hundred pictures, sent off your postcards, lost your passport, gotten ripped off by taxi drivers and rickshaw wallahs, seen some pretty disgusting toilets, found your passport (hopefully not in the disgusting toilet), and managed to make it back home with several extra bags full of hard-earned, hopefully hard-bargained for, travel goodies.

You eagerly dig to the bottom of your backpack or tear open that box you shipped home, and mixed in with the satisfaction at your savvy purchase of that perfect pair of embroidered Rajasthani sandals or special silk scarves from Thailand, are patchwork neon sarongs or tacky t-shirts with declaratives like, ”Good Morning Vietnam!”  And it inevitably comes, that moment of, “What was I thinking?”

Such is the case with me, at the moment.  I’ve recently returned home after two months in India

and Southeast Asia, and mixed in with my cherished pashminas and beloved bangles is a lot of crap – things that I will never find a use for or would not wear under threats of violence.  There is a hideous tank top I bought in Goa, a rainbow striped, Crayola-colored disaster I unpacked with horror and shame.  I swear it looked completely different in India.  I also managed to acquire quite a collection of miniature elephants from half a dozen countries, and while some of them are pretty cool, I couldn’t display them all in my apartment without giving the impression that I have some kind of weird elephant fetish.

I guess buying ridiculous souvenirs is an unavoidable part of traveling.  Even though I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a fanny-pack and try to look cool in my best Indiana Jones khakis while on the road, I am not quite the savvy traveler I like to think I am; I’m just a tourist like everyone else.

Read more: Backpacking, Shopping, Travel, Travel Advice, Travel Tips and Resources, World Travel


Nicole -- Nicole hails from metropolian Conway, South Carolina. While she's not busy doing Southern things like eating biscuits and heavily buttered grits (often together), she likes to travel to other countries and eat their food. Her favorite exotic treats include: Icelandic Skyr, South Indian dosa, British Jaffa Cakes, and Austrian strudel.

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