Inner turmoil... I has it

A thought for all you travellers out there.

My displacement anxiety has been flaring up again lately, a bit like a bad knee that you can ignore or live with  most of the time but when it starts to play up can become crippling.  I ahve been travelling for almost exactly 1 year now, I've seen and done so many things in a concentrated amount of time, and while I've enjoyed it thoroughly, I found myself flicking through a friend's travel pics and thinking "oh, I wish I was travelling again".  I just don't seem to be satisfied these days.

Those of us with the desire to broaden our horizons and see the world set off with stars in our eyes and an appetite for adventure in our bellies.  We are told that we can achieve anything we set out to do; yes, you single young female, you can travel through 3rd world countries by yourself on $10 a day not knowing where you will sleep that night. Yes, you can weasel out of sticky situations with gypsies, Zambian border officials or angry Japanese (snow-)monkeys.  Yes, you can see the Great Wall of China, teach poor Cambodian kids about photography and order sake & udon in Japanese at a local noodle bar in Tokyo. But what do you do after all that?

Normal life seems so... mundane in comparison, doesn't it?  Even when you're still 'travelling' and living in an exciting new environment, getting up, going to work, going home, and doing it all over again tomorrow seems so... lame.   What the hell is gonna happen when I go back home?  HOME home?

So my question to you is:

Is travel an experience - something to enjoy at the time of experiencing it?

Is travel a possession - a collection of experiences (and in my case, photos), memories to add to the library, one more place to add to the ever-growing list, is my list longer than yours, what places are going on the list next?

Or, is travel a drug - something that takes you on an amazing ride, showing you things you've never seen or experienced before, heightens your senses and generally blows your mind?  And, like a drug, do you need more and more to reach that same high?  Do you become desensitised, dissatisfied, harder to please?  Do you find yourself thinking, dreaming about your next one?   And do you suffer from withdrawal when you don't get it?

Yes

But there's no cold turkey for this drug.  There's no recovery.  It stays in your system.  And the real question is:  is that even a bad thing?  Is this just the price we pay for conquering the world at a young age?

Your thoughts?