Following the recent royal wedding there was a gorgeous photo published of an older lady standing on the side of the road waiting for the newlyweds to drive past. In the photo she appeared totally focussed and in the moment, a slight smile on her face, her body in a relaxed pose, waiting patiently and surrounded by a throng of people all of whom were attempting to capture the moment on their mobile phones. Their postures and demeanour where much less at ease, more poised waiting to react. It really got me thinking about how lucky this lady is to have grown up in an era without the constant connectivity we have today. Of course we live in the privileged time of easy connection to friends, family and strangers around the world. Access to endless information and stimulation is at our finger tips. But how lovely it is that she can be so totally engrossed in the here and now, and happy to have an experience that is all for her. Sure she will tell her friends and family about it but she won’t feel the need to broadcast it on social media and wait for the approval from others. She won’t feel the need to compare her experience with that of others or feel the jealousy or inadequacy sometimes prevalent with the insight we have into other’s (carefully packaged and portrayed) lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I am as guilty as any of being a little too addicted to social media. I love it for it’s capacity to allow us to share our lives. It has at times been a real lifeline for this mumma who feels the isolation and loneliness that can come with the reduced amount of adult contact experienced when home with children. But I also feel the constant pressure to report on my life, to document my experiences with beautiful photographs and carefully crafted words. And I suffer from FOMO, always comparing my life to others, wondering at times why I don’t seem to measure up.

It also got me thinking about how the experience of travelling has changed since the onset of social media. When Andy and I took our first big trip seventeen years ago (at the risk of sounding old!) there were no mobile phones, no Facebook, no Instagram. We packed up our belongings and our jobs and set off for an adventure, six months around the world. We journeyed through Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Equador and Brazil, through Western Europe and then on to India and Nepal. I wrote in a journal and when we were able to get to a computer with fast enough internet speed (a real challenge in India, Nepal and some parts of South America where it was enough just to expect a constant source of electricity!) I would send an email to family and friends telling them of our travel tales. Sometimes this was only once every couple of weeks. I remember wondering, and worrying, on occasion how they would track us down if something went wrong at home and they really needed to find us. For we were really out there adventuring, wandering the world on our own time and for ourselves. Our families had a rough idea of our whereabouts but on a day to day basis did not know our exact location.

This hit home quite early on in our trip when we found ourselves in Cusco, Peru when an earthquake hit. We didn’t actually feel the earthquake and only had a rough idea that it had happened, such was the language barrier. We were due to head off to Arequipa the next day and figured that if it wasn’t safe to go there the buses wouldn’t run. The hosts of our guesthouse tried to explain the gravity of the situation to us, and the fact that Arequipa was the epicentre of the quake, but with our limited Spanish and no internet or social media easily accessible to help inform our decision we decided to go anyway. When we arrived we saw first hand the devastation the quake had caused, and experienced some terrifyingly strong aftershocks ourselves, running into the common area of our guest house one night as the ground moved from under us, to find the staff petrified, crying and hiding under the door frames. Little did we know the news had reached Australia and our parents were fearing for our safety. We joined the great queue of locals at the telephone booths and internet cafes trying to get news out.

In the evenings we read books, which once finished were swapped in the first book exchange we could find, or we flicked through the pages of our Lonely Planets, planning our sightseeing for the next day, or trying to work out how we would get to our next location. Cheap guesthouses and hostels did not have a website and could not be booked online, so when we arrived to a new town we would traipse through the streets, laden with our heavy backpacks trying to scope out somewhere that fit in our very tight budget and was not so filthy or uncomfortable that it made relaxing impossible.

I took photos on film with my SLR camera. Buying and processing film was very expensive on our backpacking budget so I was really careful about what I chose to photograph, not wanting to waste a single frame. As the journey progressed my plastic bag of undeveloped film grew and grew. Those rolls of film were my most treasured possession. I guarded them with my life and fretted about how devastated I would be if I lost them. When I travel now I feel anxious if I don’t post a photo on Instagram daily, then I carried the magic and expectation of the memories I had captured with me for the whole six months. The day I went to collect my photos from the processor was filled with so much excitement and expectation. The result is eight albums full of our memories. To be honest they spend long periods of time on the bookshelf gathering dust but when we get them out to reminisce or share with friends or family intimately they bring so much joy.

I often feel like I want to have the photos digitised so I can put them on this blog and share them with as many people as possible. For some of the most adventurous travel we have done and the most incredible places we have visited were before digital cameras and smart phones existed. Hello Macchu Pichu, the Taj Mahal, the banks of the Ganges at Varanasi, Kathmandu, a view of Mt Everest from Gokyo Ri after a 21 day trek into the high Himalaya, the Bolivian altiplano, Lake Titicaca, Paris, Berlin, Rome, the French Alps, Cinque Terra and so many more. Apart from the time and cost involved in doing this, sometimes I think perhaps the photos are best kept as they are. Of course I would adore to share them with as many people as possible, but perhaps it is more special to flick through the albums with friends and family, in our home, over a cup of tea. Time will tell if the urge to share becomes too great for me to bare, but for now I will enjoy pulling the albums out every now and then, reminiscing with my husband, sharing them with my daughter, and anyone else who shows an interest.

As we contemplate some more travel before our eldest child goes off to school I wonder about the pressure I will feel to keep up with the travelling joneses. Is the joy for me going to come in getting more Instagram followers and likes and external validation of what a wonderful thing we are doing? Or will I be able to remain content in seeing every moment fully with my family. One thing is for sure, I will never be without my camera or the written word, as these things have been with me and in my blood for as long as I can remember. It is the way I express myself and my contribution to the world. But I hope I can keep the image of the little lady on the side of the road waiting for the newlyweds with me and cherish the chance to experience the world in my own unique way, shared with those closest to me, to create life long bonds we will recall forever. And I am so grateful we were able to experience travelling in our own adventurous, unglamorous way before the pressure to package everything perfectly for Instagram.