What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel?
Everyone has that story. “I watched Eat Pray Love and three weeks later I was eating gelato in Rome, praying in an ashram, and loving a man named Felipe.” Or “I read On the Road in college and hitchhiked to Portland with forty dollars and a bad idea.” People love telling these stories at dinner parties, eyes misty, as if a two hour film single handedly rerouted their entire life.
I have no such story. None. I have combed through my memory like a woman looking for her car keys, and I keep coming up with nothing.
It’s not that I haven’t watched travel movies. I’ve seen The Bucket List. I’ve seen Under the Tuscan Sun. I nodded along politely, the way you nod when someone shows you their vacation photos on a phone with a cracked screen. Nice. Lovely. Good for them. Then I closed my laptop and went to bed at my usual time.
Here’s my theory on why. Movies and books sell you the highlight reel. Two hours of sunsets, spontaneous scooter rides, and strangers who turn out to be soulmates or life coaches in disguise. Nobody has ever made a stirring montage out of “she stood in a visa queue for four hours” or “the hotel Wi-Fi did not work and she had a deck due Monday.” My travel decisions have never been cinematic. They’ve been things like “there’s a direct flight” or “my cousin lives there and won’t charge me rent” or, memorably, “I need to see the ocean before this quarter ends or I will lose my mind.”
If anything has ever nudged me toward a plane ticket, it’s been far less romantic than a film. A daughter three time zones away who hasn’t hugged me in too long, an entire branch of family scattered across the US just waiting to be gathered into one loud reunion. A conference invite that happened to land somewhere with good views. The tea farm back home in Othaya, which doesn’t inspire wanderlust so much as it inspires a deep appreciation for the smell of rain on soil, and honestly that might be its own kind of magic.
So no, I can’t point to a movie that changed my life’s trajectory. I think I’m just built differently. I don’t need a character in a linen dress finding herself in Bali to convince me travel is worthwhile. I already know. I’ve seen enough spreadsheets and steering committee decks in my life to know that a change of scenery is not optional, it’s maintenance.
Maybe that’s the real plot twist here. The people who need a movie to inspire them to travel are the ones who haven’t yet figured out that real life, with all its unglamorous logistics, is reason enough. You don’t need Julia Roberts riding a bicycle through a rice paddy. You just need a passport that hasn’t expired and the good sense to take the leave days you’ve earned.
So here’s my counter question, because I refuse to be the only person answering this one honestly: has a movie or book ever actually gotten you on a plane, or did you also just wake up one day and book the ticket because you were tired and needed sun?
I suspect most of us are lying about the movie.😅
