Where should I travel next?

If travel is a religion, does that mean train toilets
like this one in Sri Lanka are churches?

Travel is a capricious deity. I see it as a Her, a capricious her, giving me a perspective I respect, experiences I appreciate, and a sense of life on earth that I find essential to understanding my place in it. But she also taketh away, that’s for damn sure. Case in point: the woman I love, and my entire capacity for romantic connection. Womp womp.

So what am I going to do about it? Well, I’m gonna worship. Not with the headlong devotion I used to, I’m keeping my apartment and only going for a couple weeks, but if this thing has taken me away from my relationship? Well, then I guess that’s where I am. Moving forward.

Latin America, where every small town (like this one in
Venezuela) has a park full of fiestas and patriotic chicanery

My window for adoration of peregrination is December. So, anyone who stumbles past this post, where should I go? The world is my oyster, and I’m reasonably sure I’m not allergic.

I don’t believe in passport-stamp-collecting, but as my tour guide job takes me to places that grow increasingly familiar (which I appreciate and delight in) I am drawn to go some place with a blank slate.

South America (outside of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela) seems the likeliest candidate. Fly to Buenos Aires then cross up through Uruguay, hopefully with enough time to reach Paraguay. I’ve got about three weeks to give. I miss using Spanish, and would love to get it flowing again.

My god welcomes others. Maybe it's
time again for a stack of Hindu ones?

But all of a sudden I look and see $400ish flights to Hanoi. Vietnam? Viet-why not?

And Africa, beautiful fascinating Africa, that I haven’t touched in years, it’s sitting just over there…

So? Where should I go?