An Introduction to Travel on lailaqadira.co.uk

I yearn to experience a new place for the first time, be introduced to rich cultures, meet new people, eat a variety of cuisines, and learn about the local history. I’m eager to come back from these trips and share my experiences with others in as much detail as possible. I have this inherent urge to travel and yet, I have a fear of it. The main fear is the travel itself – I’m not kidding you.

Do I want to travel by car? Too inconvenient and I’m scared of driving on the other side of the road – this would realistically only be feasible for Europe even if I was okay with it.  

How about a ship? Some form of cruise or ferry? Honestly, I have watched too many water related movies (Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, Titanic), documentaries (the National Geographic ones have a hold on me and of course Blue Planet) and read too many breaking news articles for me to ever want to spend an extended period on an expanse of ocean.

A plane? It’s a polite but firm no from me.

And yet, I must conquer these fears to do the travelling I have always dreamed of. A lot of people have the urge to reel off stats to me about how safe certain types of travel are, and I appreciate that they’re coming from a reassuring place but, these fears aren’t logical or rational. Trying to conquer them with something as grounded as proven statistics simply won’t work.

I’ve spent some time thinking about how I could potentially move past this mental barrier, and I decided that maybe flooding therapy would be the best way. I have used this technique before for my fear of driving on the motorway… and cats. Yes, cats. Flooding therapy is a type of exposure therapy which consists of exposing an individual to a big fear that they have for a prolonged period, long enough for their brain and body to calm itself down. You essentially end up positively conditioning the mind, so you don’t react severely to the fear when presented to you again. This is best to carry out with someone who is a licensed therapist with experience in flooding therapy as it does put you in quite a high stress situation for both your mind and body. You also may have to repeat the process a few times.

There’s a certain lack of urgency to conquer my fear of driving on the wrong side of the road as it is the least feared and I know that similarly to the motorway fear, I’ll conquer it by doing it. Travelling by sea is my second feared form of travel but I have no plans to travel anywhere by sea, so I’ll put that one on the backburner. That just leaves my biggest travel fear – the plane.

Alongside having a fear of planes, I’m also quite fascinated by them. But again, a deep level of intrigue and appreciation for an aircraft, still doesn’t quite outweigh the fear of it. When my husband asked me if I wanted to accompany him to Berlin and Montreal next month I jumped at the opportunity. This was going to be the ideal situation for my flooding therapy; four flights within two weeks of each other will give me the repetition I need; the first set of flights will only be 2 hours in length each and the second set will be approximately 7 hours – a big jump but it still offers a form of ramping up to a longer flight; and although not a licensed therapist, I will have my husband for support. I think this checks all the right boxes for me. My intention is to come out of this experience more ready and willing to travel with much less fear than I once had.

You would think that this was my first time ever travelling but that would be untrue because I have travelled a fair amount. It’s just that all that travelling was done before the age of 16. I went on 2 road trips to France one of which required me to go on a ferry and the other had me travelling via the Channel Tunnel.

I flew to the US with all my cousins, my mum and my aunty and we did a little American road trip. We landed in New York and spent some time there before heading to New Jersey, Washington, and Florida, stopping off to visit family, visit tourist attractions and go to Disneyland. This trip lasted a few weeks and forms part of my core memories even now.

I flew to Greece one Easter to visit Athens which is still one of my most memorable trips. I remember going on one of those touristy island-hopping cruises on the windiest day ever, viewing breathtaking ancient ruins and my dad teaching me greetings and numbers in Greek. He’s such an enthusiastic tourist!

My last major trip was to Pakistan, and I dream of going back to visit all the time. We visited Lahore, Jhang, Gujranwala, Islamabad, and Murree. The bazaars were incredible, the breathtaking beauty of the Shahi Qila, Shalimar Bagh and Badshahi Masjid were unmatched, and the food and subsequent food poisoning will be etched into my memory forever.

The one constant amongst all these incredible trips was my fear of flying and travelling on open water. The driving on the other side of the road thing was a bonus fear that I unlocked when I received my licence. Travelling as a child was easier because I had adults around me who I felt were there to protect me and I wasn’t as aware of my own mortality. Being aware of your own mortality is not necessarily a bad thing and it can have a positive impact on your life but being hyper aware and becoming incredibly risk averse as a result is largely unhelpful. The latter is where I’m at and I want to change that reality and fast so I can enjoy life to the fullest (but also responsibly). I also know my fear of different types of travel became much worse as more time passed since my last holiday. I believe it has now been approximately 13 years since my last trip, so this is long overdue.

I will be documenting the trips on here and I am hoping to share how much better I will get over time with managing my stress and anxiety going into these experiences. My ideal scenario is becoming so comfortable that planning and going overseas for a holiday or work trip is an easier experience for me mentally and something I can do at the drop of a hat.

If you’ve read my recent articles, you will notice that climate change and our impact on the environment is a topic that I think about a lot. There’s no question that flying is the form of travel that is the most damaging to the environment. I could travel by train and coach as these are the least damaging to the environment but on the other hand, it’s also more time-consuming and train travel can also be more expensive. Although the environment is always a consideration, I am not always going to make a decision that is better for our climate because sometimes it’s not convenient and sometimes I’m simply unwilling to. I don’t seek perfection from all my decisions as that would be too high of an expectation from any individual including oneself, but I do hope that they are considered decisions and not choices made haphazardly.  I’m also acutely aware of the fact that the large corporations that dominate our world are the largest contributors to carbon emissions and the individual poses less of a risk to the environment than they do.

I am really hoping to do some UK based travel soon and I will endeavour to travel exclusively on trains and by car (electric) because its more than achievable. I will do what I can, where and when I can because ultimately, I do care but the sad reality is that the corporations and governments that have the power to make a large impact, refuse to do so because of their greed. That greed motivates them to do whatever they can during their own lifetimes to build their wealth but does nothing to motivate them to save the planet for future generations.

Am I going to end all my articles with a rant about the environment? No, I swear I won’t because that would just be dull. I’m adding in my thoughts about it wherever I can in these introductory articles so it’s not a surprise when these views and considerations crop up again in the future in relation to certain topics. I have written articles before for a personal website many years ago and I feel I censored what I cared about a little too much so that what I wrote could be appealing to a wider group of people. As I get older, I realise that I want to be picky with the audience that my writing appeals to and I do not want to hide and minimise who I am and what I stand for. It’s not going to be an authentic personal publication unless I include other topics, beyond the neatly formed categories that I have decided to write within. And not to mention, good writing should always have a point of view. So, while I warm up my writing muscles again, I am also reminding myself to be the least censored version of myself possible. Hopefully it’ll make for some interesting articles.

Ok, it's time for me to start packing for my first trip as an adult, do some breathing exercises to calm the anxiety and read articles about how turbulence is just fine… wish me luck.