Dear LPG, 

For lots of people, the thought of geographical travel is where their hearts are.  Getting away from it all and spending a couple of weeks a year on a sunny beach does it for some, while experiencing the customs and traditions of people in other parts of the world has to be the ultimate reason to visit foreign parts for others and, after a couple of years when traveling has been off the agenda for nearly everyone, it is good to have the freedom to get away from it all if you want to.

For all that, I have never really felt the need to travel although it is not for the reasons that people might think. I am not averse to going to far-away places or seeing how the other half lives, but the few times that I have traversed the waters have taught me that I just don’t like journeying anywhere really although having arrived, I can embrace being a tourist or trying my hand at living like the locals as well as anyone else.  Whenever I have made the effort in the past, it has been to visit family or friends that have moved away and I have enjoyed it once I have arrived.

They say that there is a name for nearly every condition and we all know about motion sickness and travel sickness but it’s not that.   A quick check on the internet informs that another name for this phobia is Hodophobia, which is a fear of getting on a particular mode of transport because of a past experience or something worrying about it that you have heard.  

I think that perhaps, it is that I find it hard to just sit and wait to get from one place to another.  I even loose patients while sitting at a bus stop or train station and, on the few occasions that I have been on a plane, the waiting around before leaving the ground is something I have found really frustrating, even if I am waiting with others who so often are full of anticipation and chat. 

I sometimes think that it is to do with getting older.  Advancing in years comes with sickness, the need for more medication, more frequent health checks, and travel insurance gets frighteningly expensive as you get older too but, when I think back I have never really enjoyed going to far-away places although I quite like most of them once I am there. I definitely don’t like travelling but I am not frightened of it so I suppose what I have is not a phobia as such. 

I am sure it will happen, though not in my lifetime.  Many things that start out a science fiction have evolved into science fact.  I just wish that I could wait around for that day when the Star Trek molecular transporter that takes people from one place to another in the blink of an eye becomes the commonplace way to travel.  Perhaps somewhere, an inventor might be working on it… 

Am I afflicted with a phobia that does not yet have a name? 

CN, Bellingham

LPG found a little information about Hodophobia…

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