Essay Sample on Travel for Experience

Introduction

Travel writing is a favourite and flourishing literature genre where every year new authors release pieces regarding their explorations and adventures. Travel writers like Bill Bryson features are often in best sellers list across the United States and Europe (Thompson 10). The audience has prompted publishers to even print out old travel books in a series such as a picador's travel classics. Travellers today can indulge their urge for adventure by borrowing from the diverse historical and contemporary travel literature. The writings recount journeys made for all reasons conceivable by man to every other destination in the world. The authors of travel books range from backpackers to comedians, explores to celebrities who seek to make an essential contribution to knowledge or art (Blanton).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Freda moon in 'Pregnant in Panama,' shares her experiences as a traveller and how she overcomes travelling challenges as a pregnant woman. She is a professional travel writer, and her passion is in adventure and exploration. According to Hulme, (99), traveller's routes are sometimes difficult to decipher, but in this case, Freda's journey and purpose are clear. In writing, she sets out on a journey to restore her connection to her parents. Many people around her have told her that having children will change everything about her life but her travel enthusiast parents taught her that parenting does not indicate the end of adventure and exploration. Freda reconnects with the roots of her passionate parents who would not give up anything for travel. She recounts an experience looking over the hills while in Panama and feeling a connection to her mother who had been in the same spot thirty-five years back. At this moment she is six years older than her mother was and seven months pregnant with a baby girl. At that time her mother was pregnant with her, the first child, and twenty-eight years of age.

Freda recounts her childhood where her mother shared stories of her travels to Central and South America before Freda was even born. Freda's mother did not let her pregnancy limit her from travelling as the society would expect. Taboga was her mother's first stop from Panama City in a spontaneous journey that shaped Freda's earliest perception of travelling in as much as they took family trips later on. She recalls that her dad was not so enthusiastic about the news of the pregnancy as it was unexpected and her mother could not wait around anymore, so she bought a plane ticket and left alone to Panama. Moon had the perception driven by many travel writers that the trip her mother took was an escape as her mother was seeking a last brink of happiness before diving into single motherhood. Many travellers like Lisa Abend in 'Sound of Silence' travel to escape difficult situations and have alone time. Freda's mother was trying to prove to everyone else who may have thought she could not do it by herself, that she can be an independent mother and still travel.

Moon in her pregnancy has thought about her period travelling through Latin America as a brilliant pregnant hippie and pondered what time may have meant to her mother. Her mother despite being intensely volatile, creative and beautiful she did struggle with motherhood. She recalls not feeling too loved by her mother following her different temperament which was not easy for Moon and her brother. She reminisced about how tough it had been to create a relationship with her mother. She tries to place herself into her mother's shoes and only came up with a partial explanation. She was able to understand her mother as she was in the same spot her mother was when she was expectant with her. An unexpected child to her mother meant disarrangement of her life while giving up on so many things like travelling. This is the kind of struggle Freda seems to have been going through at that particular point in time.

Female travellers have not had it easy since inception, and it develops a gender boundary that women are required to overcome (Youngs, 134). This challenge fails them in their travel dreams Carl Thompson mentions in 'travel writing,' that a great expectations are placed not just on female travellers but all women, in general, to wholly involve themselves with household activities and with the everyday home duties of caring for children, washing clothes, cleaning the house and preparing family meals leading to abandonment of their passion. (Thompson). Steadman (15), in 'Traveling economies,' discussed the constraints of travelling women as they have roles placed on them by society. Moon was able to understand her mother's passion for travelling she felt the bond of mothers who love to travel even when they are continuously told that having children leads to an end to their travelling days. Freda and her mother both being mothers have a similar passion for travelling, and they refuse to give up their love for it. They had a challenging relationship; this prompted the need to reconnect with her mother as she prepares for motherhood.

Steadman (28), salutes women who love to travel and insist on doing it even when advised not to especially after having children which mainly means leaving days of exploration and adventure behind them. We see both of them as mothers share the same passion of travelling and refuse to give up their passion because of motherhood. Moon after visiting Tobago made a realization that she now had a companion in her parenting journey, her unborn child and her mother in spirit. She also realized that that moment would be her last time being alone for a long time and would not be able to notice the things one notices while alone but that did not bother her anymore. We see that she was surprised by the goodness and satisfactory nature of the realization and it gave her a feeling of not being alone as she felt she had a fellow traveller. Her unborn daughter became part of her journey just like the way Moon was part of her mothers. It is a delight to see the formation of a bond not only between Moon and her mother but also between her and her unborn baby.

Moon's travel was mainly set to help her reconnect with her family as we see she was more ambitious than to explore but had placed a meaning to her trip merely. She reconnected with her father on a physical level by visiting him and not just in memory as she had with her mother. She had reconnected with her mother through old memories and the mutual stance of they both being mothers. Despite her parents divorcing, her father had soon devoted himself to fatherhood, and she was able to have both raise her separately in rural Northern California. Her father was a passionate traveller too making more ambitious and preferred longer adventures compared to her mother. While Moon was a sophomore in high school her father had obtained a sailboat and so he took Moon and her brother on a cruise from San Francisco to Panama Canal. Seeing her father after a long time, she realized he had grown older and was now seventy years old. He was excited to see his daughter and loved the news of becoming a grandfather. He had ceased his travelling due to old age and was having a fourth hip replacement. Moon was able to spend time alone with her father, and it would probably be last time she does so before giving birth. She reminisced of the times they used to travel together and aspired to do the same with her child. Being able to spend time with her father in her life helped her understand the role of a parent in a child's life. Her parents had dedicated themselves to their children's lives and offered them joy. Those people who are passionate about travelling show their care to their loved one by taking them on twin adventures. She hopes her child will be her companion in travel as she believes she will not stop travelling.

Freda's writing in 'Pregnant in Panama,' is different from other travel writers who urge people to travel to get away. She is seemingly encouraging the audience to use travel not as an escape but as a way to find themselves. She talks of travel as something people should do to help them cultivate their relationships and finding ways to fix mistakes instead of running away from them. Other traditional writers such as Lisa Abend, persuade people to take breaks when needed. Abend convinces people to spend some time away from their lives and visit places of solitude to escape challenges of life. In her essay 'Sound of Silence,' she describes how busy life in employment and social relationships can become stressful and therefore, one should escape from it all for some time. Abend's travel was meant as an escape that she needed to calm herself. She left for a society which was purer and where technology was not needed. Her travel writing is different from the message in Freda's piece. Moon seems to be challenging the normality of travel writing. She challenges the genre of travel writing to adopt new conventions. She has chosen the best conventions to convince her audience that travel should not be used as a means for escape but should be used as a time to cultivate relationship as she did with her mother, father and her unborn child. In 'Pregnant in Panama,' her way of writing is highly influenced by her opinion based on what she appreciates as being the correct idea and what she believes she should be telling her audience whether it fits into the genre of travel writing or not.

Works Cited

Abend, Lisa. Sounds of Silence: "The Ultimate Way to Seek Solitude." AFAR Media, 2014, https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-sound-of-silence. Accessed 26 Oct 2018.

Blanton, Casey. Travel writing. Routledge, 2013.

Hulme, Peter, and Tim Youngs, eds. The Cambridge companion to travel writing: Travelling to write. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Moon, Freda. Pregnant in Panama: "Do You Really Have To Stop Traveling When You Have Kids?" AFAR Media, 2015, https://www.afar.com/magazine/pregnant-in-panama. Accessed 26 Oct 2018.

Steadman, Jennifer Bernhardt. Travelling economies: American women's travel writing. The Ohio State University Press, 2007.

Thompson, Carl. Travel writing. Routledge, 2011.

Youngs, Tim. The Cambridge introduction to travel writing. Cambridge University Press, 2013.