COMMENTARY, June 25 – There will be no travel outside the country for the near future. There will be no flying or vacations in distant locales. This is true for so many of us across the world; right now we have bigger problems to worry about.

And even after international travel resumes, how many of us will leave the safety blanket of our own countries, of our homes? What a loss, you say, but wait a minute I say: what’s so great about travelling anyway?

I won’t miss the long, long lines: first at the check-in counters, then security where you almost always forget that one item that sets off the metal detector, then immigration where someone in front of you in the queue inevitably gets in an argument with the officer... It’s a waiting game.

Still, there’s nothing quite like settling into a seat and realising there’s no one else sitting next to you and you can nap in peace or meditate or watch Keanu Reeves disarming an entire squad of assassins with a book.

Breathtaking view during a train ride

There’s nothing like a train ride like the raucous all-nighter my friends and I took from Munich to Berlin, when we started singing "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” by Eurythmics with complete strangers, if not in harmony then at least in unexpected camaraderie.

It’s sitting in a carriage alone from Inverness to the Isle of Skye, watching what might have been the original inspiration for Middle Earth outside the window or, better yet, to admire such breathtaking views with someone you love.

I won’t miss the cruddy, cardboard tasting commercial food options. Overly processed, identical from outlet to outlet, managing to be too salty and too sweet at the same time. These fast food quagmires filled with other jetlagged souls at unearthly hours, with drunkards, with unsavoury sorts, with folks picking fights, with muggers and miscreants.

A Thai friend introduced me to the best 'pad krapao' I’ve ever had

Still, if you wander into the less touristy alley ways, if you venture further into villages and tiny towns off the TripAdvisor trail, you’ll discover what the locals eat, often homey and humble and full of new flavours. The best pad krapao I ever had was cooked in the front yard of a friendly Thai auntie’s house in Saraburi.

I still remember the crackle of the holy basil as it hit the wok’s blistering surface and the surprise garnishing of some melt-in-the-mouth pork liver sealing the deal. It was nothing I could get in a Bangkok mall, that’s for sure.

Speaking of pad krapao, perhaps I was too hasty with what I said earlier about commercial fare. Some of the best stir-fried holy basil with pork I’ve had came from Japanese convenience stores in Thailand. And the original konbinis in Japan offer a smörgåsbord of irresistible local delights: onigiri stuffed with mentaiko (salted cod roe) and mayonnaise, winter oden, chilled katsusando for the sandwich connoisseur, and so much more...

But still. There are the crowds. Oh, the crowds. I don’t miss the crowds.

In Tokyo, come sakura season, the number of tourists multiply as the delicate cherry blossoms enter full bloom. I can only imagine how frustrated the year-round residents get with the litter, the noise, the reprobates pulling fragile cherry branches down for a selfie despite being told not to.

New Zealand’s Queenstown is beloved by tourists for its stunning scenery

In Queenstown, where the stunning scenery and the crystal clear waters of Lake Wakatipu attract busloads of foreign visitors; in Cusco where the swarms gather before heading to Machu Picchu, where the wear and tear from years of footsteps are eroding the history beneath us; the artifice and the pandering can break your heart.

But I do miss my friends who live in these cities, who live overseas, who are where we are not.

The cherry blossom season in Tokyo is extra special when a local friend invites you to a 'hanami" picnic

I miss my friend Nao who brought us for our first hanami (flower viewing) picnic beneath a cherry blossom tree in spring. I miss my friend Jenny, who introduced us to Taiwanese style málà huǒguō, her stories of vagabonding as feisty as the Sichuan spices in our hotpot.

I miss my Norwegian friend Ernst who led us up Preikestolen, gleefully informing us this was where Tom Cruise would be hanging on for his life in one of those Mission: Impossible films. I miss my little Thai brother, Nong Ice, who guided us into the jungles of Khao Yai, where herds of wild elephants roam.

That’s the truth about travel: even as I tell myself I don’t miss it, I very much do. Of course, I do.

For every time I get harassed for being Asian, for being foreign looking, for each incident of xenophobic abuse hurled, there is warmth and wonder and curiosity. Who are you? Where are you from? Why have you decided to visit?

You take the good with the bad when you travel, as with life. And when travel is safe once more, when we can fly and catch trains and ride on buses with destinations written in languages we neither read nor speak, then I will be gallivanting again.

I will embrace it all, good and bad. What I don’t miss about travel will never be outweighed by what I do miss and love about it. The journeys, as always, matter more than the destinations.

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