There he goes again, smiling cheekily as he cheerfully chats with the dreadlocked female cab driver while cruising along one of the Big Apple’s streets. Moments later, he’s on a boat holding a fishing rod, trying to convince the uncompromising Italian-American man with the gray hair about the merits of Hawaiian pizza. Then he’s back in central New York, armed with a digital camera and a cheeky grin, living the paparazzi life as he takes pictures of Hollywood stars in a film festival.
I am not one who easily gives in to envy, but there is one person I am envious of with passion: Ian Wright. That short, endearingly irreverent Englishman who is living the life I wish is mine.
He slept in an igloo and communed with the Inuits in frigid Greenland. He downed pints of Guinness in Ireland. He ate ginger-flavored ice cream in Tanzania, and feasted on roasted sheep innards with Genghis Khan’s descendants in Mongolia. He lived like royalty in Dubai, and traveled to his heart’s content all over the United States.
That Ian Wright went to all those places and did all those things is not so unusual – other people have been to more places and done crazier things. But what is quite unusual, and what makes me green with envy, is the fact that it’s his job to do all that. As a presenter/traveler for the Travel and Lifestyle Channel (and formerly for Lonely Planet), adventure is the key word in his job description.
I really wonder how he landed his job. Was it his looks? I guess not. His height? Quite unlikely. Perhaps, it’s his gung-ho attitude and his cheeky English wit that convinced the Discovery Channel gods to give him the job. But whatever and however Ian Wright got it, I want his life.
I want to go to Brazil not just to watch the beautiful game and dance the samba, but to experience its diversity, its mystic, its passion. I want to go to the Galapagos Island not to disprove Darwin’s theory, but to behold the raw beauty of creation. I want to go to Amsterdam not to legally smoke pot, but to understand tolerance. I want to go to China not to unearth Mao’s follies, but to discover the secrets of an ancient civilization’s longevity. I want to go Sarajevo not to see leftover bombs, but to better understand the evils of war.
I want to travel because I want to experience life. I want to know how it is to be Mexican and French and Japanese and Cameroonian and Danish and Cuban and Samoan and Croat. I want to be a citizen of the world.
I wonder where Ian Wright will go next – the International Space Station, who knows? And I wonder where I will go next. I’ve been to some countries and have known cultures other than mine, but I want to experience more. My wondering, wandering spirit thirsts for more adventure, and the only thing that can quench it is adventure itself.
