Its All My Parents’ Fault – Confessions of a Travel Addict

The blame game…

That’s what we all love to do. Blame our genes, our upbringing and whatever we can think of to explain why we turn out how we are at 18 – ”bad tempered”, ”short” or ”overweight”.

But perhaps there are some things that we blame our parents for, that aren’t so bad, but actually framed us into who we are today.

For me it’s my deep and immense love to travel .

I am brought up in a family where I have a set of parents who are..what my friends deemed as ‘very cool’. They aren’t cool by the conventional definition by looks ( not at all ;p ), like how some of my friends have super good looking parents, that you look at your friends and you go ”Woah, your mum dresses better than you”.

But I have parents who are the unconventional cool, that few if not none of my friends can relate to. In fact, find it hard to believe sometimes.

Yup, my parents, are Middle Age Hippies and Travel Addicts!

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My parents, even when they are in their 40s going on 50s, still traveling the world like a 20 year old youngster..sometimes more rough and intense than me and my peers. They can make spontaneous holiday decisions in days and book online flight tickets so fast, it shocks me. This travel obsession of theirs can lead to them disappearing somewhere for the weekend with us 3 sisters left to find out, only after they have already arrived there.”So, eh..where did they go THIS TIME??”

But I guess the purpose of me writing this is that..I have caught this immense ”love for travel’ and ‘ travel addict -ion)’ genes from them.

Since I was a tiny toddler, they broke all parental records to bring their kids on holidays. From when I was a little crawler even up to the years we are sitting for our high school final exams and still have to do our homework while taking the Eurorail from one city to another. To the horrors of all other stereotypical competitive asian parent.

Having parents who are travel addicts

” We have travelled to almost every continent in the world and have enjoyed so much winter cold and skiing opportunities that it makes the polar bear in our Singapore zoo depressed. ”

Before you start hailing insults over that I am one lucky kid and its not fair how your own parents don’t take you on holidays, let me share a bit about the kind of family trips we do as a little girl:

• ..squeezing the whole family of 5 into a tiny king bed bed and breakfast room
• ..missing the train very frequently and having to freeze overnight at the scary europe train station with all our giant luggages…
• …missing the stop on the public bus to alight to our resort and having to walk as a young 12 year old girl dragging my suitcase up the hill in a fog
• …staying in hostels..cooking our own food..skipping all the paid attractions…

And the list goes on ( I will leave out the really rough/ cheapskate and embarrassing ones in fear of my family’s reputation;) )

This is the price you pay when you have middle age parents who have a odd ‘travel obsession’ or travel addict and want to travel frequently without depleting their whole life savings. So yes, I do clock the stamps on my passport, but we don’t have the privilege of comfortable package tour holidays, with a full stomach to bed every night. We do not have the daily comforts most middle income Singapore families indulge in during their holidays , but those are saved to go traveling more frequently and roughing it out..very hard.

Hardship from Travels

Having been put through so much ‘hardship’ in a family holiday really toughens you as a little girl.

You learn to brace the cold ( directly and indirectly) , carry your own baggage ( in this case a suitcase more than half your size), look out for bad people while your parents are arguing, carrying all your groceries like a poor overseas student and all that.

Travelholic Parents

But now looking back, it is thanks to my travelholic parents and their obsessive love to travel that we got to love and learn  being in other fascinating and exotic countries

My Train Rail trip in Canada from Vancouver to Edmonton in 2015, a year after my parents. Like mother like daughter you say?

As growing up kids, we learn to take the winter cold better, be weary of thieves ( coz we got robbed so often due to my parents attracting the wrong kind of attention), not being afraid of foreigners and pretty much – getting lost and missing your trains is no longer something that you get too worried about, or if better, not allow it to happen again now that you are older with much more experience and have seen ENOUGH of it as a young girl.

My dad from young had pulled me onto all the biggest rollercoasters in the world, and my mum has made me walk distances in the winter cold just to save some money from having to take the cab/ even public bus. So with such upbringing, the pursuits I now have.. like natural rock climbing or occasionally missing a train in a city, what’s that compared to the ‘traumatic’ training we had when growing up.

Potential Instagram parents??

So this post is really dedicated to my hippie parents.

To share with my dear friends and readers how I came about being addicted to travel, how it started since I was young and lead to my love to travel/ create my own travel blog. Slowly from there, pursuing outdoor adventures and along the way hope to inspire others to not hold back, but get out of their comfort zone and routine to travel too.

Always be grateful of what seems to be rough circumstances as it form you to who you are today..

So…Addicted to Travel?

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Read on about other inspiring travel articles:

• Other inspiration articles about rock climbing
• Watch my introductory video how I started LydiaScapes
• Read up about some of my all time favourite travel quotes