Melissa Kittrell - My Wanderlust Diaries: A Compilation of Travel Stories, Misadventures, and Life Lessons from a Solo Female Backpacker

From The Author

A s I sat in the airport stuck in Thailand, I had nothing to do but wait. The constant fretting and worry would do nothing but create bloody little nubs from chewing my fingernails while I watched the flight cancellation board. As I sat in the airport lounge, I had a moment of clarity as I finished writing a diary entry about the ordeal of getting out of Myanmar. I had always wanted to compile my entire collection of diary entries into a book, but life has a way of filling up your time, and as the years kept passing and the trips I took came and went, my diary entries just sat on the notepad of my phone. For nostalgia, I read a few and remembered some of the best times in my life. I noticed how in the beginning stages of my travels, I was so scared, but excited about the smallest thingsand now I was stuck in an airport after making fraudulent health certificates to get me home after some of the wildest adventures from traveling during a pandemic. I realized that I wanted to tell my story. I used my time in the airport and the next two weeks in a mandatory quarantine to buckle down and make it happen. If you are reading this, I was successful.

As I traveled the world, many of the people I met had no idea that one day, our exploits together would end up in a book. To protect the innocent (and not so innocent), I have changed most of the names in the book. For storytelling purposes, sometimes I combined characters to make the story flow better. Sometimes events were not chronological and I switched up a few details to help the reader understand the general story line. All my stories are based on experiences I had around the globe with the amazing travel buddies I made along the way.

I hope you enjoy my book; it was a labor of love that took over eight years to create. My earlier diary entries have a different style than my later writing. Just like the evolution of growing up, my first diaries I was experiencing everything for the first time like a baby learning to crawl. As I became more experienced with navigating travel and learning from the seasoned backpackers, I was able to capture not only the events in a day, but I was able to start relating them to the common things that everyone thinks about and make my writing more of a think piece at times. My misadventures became life lessons I was able to share with my readers, and now I pass them onto you. I endeavored to share not only the beauty in the travel destinations but also give the reader something to think about that could relate to anyone and everyone about the things that affect us all. I hope this book inspires you to create your own adventure novel, whether from a safari Jeep in Africa or your backyard. I hope you are taking advantage of the beauty we are surrounded with each and every day and living your best life. We only have one life to livemake your adventure story a best seller!

Prologue

My First
India And Thailand

M any young kids start their adult lives with a gap year of travelsometimes sandwiched after high school and college or maybe even a few years afterbut not me. I had already had many life experiences and even a career in the Navy that left me as a senior backpacker to the usual twenty-year-old, but my age or experiences did not matter. I needed a change.

My time in the US Navy had granted me a wonderful education as a Nuclear Machinists Mate and some of the best friends a person could ask for, but my transition to civilian life was difficult as I struggled to make ends meet working as a waitress at a local burger joint. I had the normal twenty-year-old problems with loving the wrong man and trying to figure out what I stood for. I was thankful to get a job with the local Naval Shipyard in Washington State, where I had an upward trajectory if I only would have kept my head on straight. Unfortunately, I liked to learn the hard way as I let my emotions guide my path and cloud my judgment. After a tough year of losing love and then losing my father, I needed a reset. I couldnt pretend I was okay any longer; the consequences of doing so seemed more dire than losing my job. Just as I had done that day I raised my hand and swore into the active service of the military, I just as quickly looked at a map and tried to find somewhere that would not make me think of homea place that I would not think of all I had lost at every corner. I did not know exactly what my soul needed at that time, but I knew I would not find it in Washington. So with very little thought, I booked my first solo backpacking trip. I had never done this before, but looking back now, it was that moment when I thought I was the most broken that I had made a choice that would forever change my life. The moment I bought that ticket was the initial spark that fueled the fire of my wanderlust, an attribute that would later become my identity and the adventure that would make me whole.

Wanderlust Diaries: My FirstIndia

I had no idea what I was doing. I could barely figure out how to get to my hostel, so how was I ever going to navigate a two-month solo trip was still under review in my head. India was an assault to the senses. From the smells, the sounds, and the chaos I witnessed, my brain could barely process it all. I didnt know how to do the backpacker thing. I had only really done minimal explorations in the Navy, and when I did, it usually involved finding the closest pub with a strict buddy rule in place. I had unwittingly booked a tour before I had left the States with a hope that I would meet some other travelers to begin my adventure. I felt lost but alive as I stayed close to my hostel that was in the middle of feral New Delhi in the Paharganj, a backpacker central enclave, bustling with tiny shops and markets next to the Main Bazaar. I was uncomfortablelike a new baby experiencing everything for the first time. As scared as I was, I had never felt as alive as I watched the locals burn trash on the streets while a man in a turban ground spices to make chai masala tea in his dirty scorched pot. I watched the little old ladies in colorful saris chase a cow through the alleyways to bless the sacred bovine. This was unlike anything I had ever seen before, and my mind was a million miles away from any of the strife of back home.

The next morning, I waited on the street corner for my guide to arrive as I watched the city spring to life. I must have looked so out of place waiting. My hostel had a unique sort of security, where the owner slept on the floor in front of the entryway. I did not want my early morning departure to bother him, so I carefully opened the door and stepped over his body and the threshold to the streets littered with rubbish. Ill never forget the smile on my guides face as he saw me standing there waiting. His name was Surrendir, and at that time, I had no way of knowing what an impact he would have on my life. All I saw was a smile that comforted my anxiety in that chaotic place filled with the sounds of beeping horns and the buzz of rickshaw drivers barreling down the narrow streets. He helped me load my backpack into his little white sedan, and we were off. My normal American brain that warned me of the perils of trusting strangers had to be rewired, and there was a kindness in Surrendirs face that put me at ease.

We made our way out of the city, driving past numerous shantytowns, where the people basically lived in thatch huts or boxes. I had known poverty in my lifetime, but I had never seen anything like this before. I resisted the urge to take photographs, but the vision of children running barefoot in the garbage of the streets of India would always live with me from that day forward. Surrendirs name was shortened to Surri for me as we progressed from an awkward hello to tongue-tied language translations to eventually friends. He spoke very little English, so we spent most of the four-hour drive learning each others language. My Lonely Planet phrase book totally failed me. Surri barely understood anything I said, but a friendly smile and giggle would always mend any frustration from the language barrier. I did manage to talk to him about his life. He was thirty years old, married, and his wife and children lived 250 kilometers away, and he only got to see them once a year. He worked in Delhi to make money to support his family and was astounded with my stories of coming home every day to see my friends and loved ones.