Hello my wonder friends. Kept you waiting, uh?
Yes, I know that I have forsaken this Travel Blog of yours but I promise you there’s a good reason for that.
The reason is, quite simply, that I needed a break from a life of constant travel. I needed to go back home. More importantly, I missed my family and I wanted to spend the holidays and my birthday with them.
And so, I spent the last three months in Acapulco, Mexico, my wonderful and kind of extremely dangerous home town.
Make no mistake, I didn’t settle down for good although I did end up buying an apartment in the up and coming zone of Acapulco Diamante as well as a PS4 (have you played Metal Gear Solid V? It’s so addictive!!!).
Geez…that didn’t sound adventurous at all did it?
A good timed break after being on the road for so long…
I guess you could say that in the end what I truly needed was a staycation (although I did end up taking small trips to Cuatro Cienegas, Monterrey, Mexico City and Queretaro).
Now, three months later, I’m ready to embark on a new adventure of wonders to the lands beyond my own.
More importantly, I’m back full time to blogging about my past and present travels (there’s still a lot of Asian articles on the pipeline that I’m sure you’ll love).
A dear friend of mine once told me that I write slower than a snail (thanks Ian!!!) and even though sometimes inspiration is hard to achieve, I must admit that writing took a backseat last year (in 2016 I published less than half the number of articles I published in 2015!!!).
One of my New Year’s resolutions (other than the traditional one to get in shape) is to improve as a travel writer and I would like to make a promise to you all: it is going to happen.
From now on, you should expect more articles that have nothing to do with specific travel destinations but rather about the implications of how travel can help bridge the inequality gap that has always existed in this world.
How can travel help bridge the inequality of the world?
During my staycation, I began to read all about the many revolutions that have shaped our world and it is the French one the one that resonated the most with me.
In the words of Condorcet, renowned French philosopher and revolutionary of the 18th Century:
Our hopes, as to the future condition of the human species, may be reduced to three points: the destruction of inequality between different nations; the progress of equality in one and the same nation; and lastly, the real improvement of man.
After reading those words, my calling became clear: to make sure that anyone from anywhere could be able to travel as much as the privileged few from privileged places.
We now live in a world of alternative facts, a world where politicians win elections by marginalizing those who don’t belong to the majority furthering the inequality gap more and more…
Is the real improvement of mankind just a unachievable dream? I’m choosing to believe it isn’t. I’m choosing to believe we can make a difference in this world, in this society, in ourselves.
Are you a part of the solution or the problem ? More importantly, what can we do to reduce the inequality of the places that we travel to?
There are no easy answers but hey, aren’t we all students of life?
As I write this, I’m on the waiting room of the Mexico City Airport. My next destination? Cuba, an unique country in which individual freedoms have been reduced in order to ensure that every single person has access to the basic human development services they need to get by in life.
Is it a price worth paying? Stay tuned for upcoming articles of Journey Wonders (at least once per week, I pinky promise!!!) and let’s find out the answer together.
Let this new chapter of Journey Wonders begin!!! See you all on the other side ; )