Instagram Vs Reality
It's so easy to admire the travels of others while forgetting that travel isn't always glamorous. Yes, you are going to encounter stunning beaches or meet people who you make a sweet connection with despite language barriers but there will also be the stories that don't feel worthy of sharing. You will have times of home sickness when you just want to hop on a plane and jump back in your own bed. There will be times when you wait in obnoxiously long lines just to get a picture perfect shot. Social media makes it so easy to forget that behind every perfectly curated and shared photo there’s usually more to the story (I talked a little more about this, here!)
I figured that I’d share are a few of the realities behind a few of my favorite travel photos to show a few of my travel realities!
Instagram:
Frolicking on a beach that looks like it's not real while surrounded by stunning water on either side.
Reality
I was struggling with home sickness, with anxiety. I was struggling to put weight on one foot because of mosquito bite that got infected and turned into a tropical ulcer (one of many I'd get over the coming weeks. I still have the scars on my ankle to prove it.)
A solo picture with a stunning view.
Reality
The line to get to the look out point for the classic "Kelingking" photo is crazy long. Oh and the hike down the the beach is one that's not fit for the pretty, Instagram worthy outfits. Get ready to break a sweat, and really work for it. One more thing, if you look really closely you may see my toe bandaged up, that’s because I busted it open on a moldy toilet the night before. Glamorous right?
The caption of this photo is "A quick jog through the London airport and now we are off to Rome"
Reality
The reason we had to rush through the airport? The boys and I took a bus from our hostel to the airport and I was so painfully hungover that I had to force myself to sleep to make it through the bus ride. While I was asleep Christian checked us all in for our flights, but couldn't check me in without my passport number. Because he is sweet he didn't want to wake me. Well, once I woke up and went to check in I had missed the check in window for Ryanair, their check in closes 2 hours before the flights- who knew. Once I got to the airport the only option I had was to wait in a very slow customer service line and pay 60 euro to get my boarding pass. From there we made our was through the very long security line and had a quick jog to make it to our gate. It all ended fine and we made our flight with a few minutes to spare!
See? There’s more to the story than meets the eye!