LiveMusicBlog

All true music lovers will know that access to music is not a luxury but a necessity. When you travel, the availability of your favorite tunes become even more necessary. like food and water, music becomes a need. Regardless of the way in which you travel, music always adds value and enjoyment to your trip. You may be traveling by bus, train, car or motorbike in your own country – with the right music, it is always better.
On a foreign visit, the presence of music enriches your travels even more. Listening to familiar music while discovering rousing new places transform the experience into something magical. tunes that you may have listened to hundreds of times before add beauty and unique memories to a vacation. They become the soundtrack of your trip. After the holiday, you listen to the same tunes again. Immediately it carries you back to the scene where you had listened to the music while traveling. You experience the place again and remember what you had seen, whom you had met, what you were talking about and how you felt. The music gave your journey meaning.
One of the biggest mistakes I made during my 1st trip abroad was not to take music with me. Even in those days, at the end of ’92, flights from South Africa to Europe were not cheap. I borrowed an old backpack from a companion. may be ‘ancient’ is a better word to use, since the pack still had a frame on the outside. Still, budget limitations did not allow me to buy a fancy and light new rucksack. My flight was scheduled to leave Johannesburg International Airport on 25 November. It meant that I would arrive in England at the same time the season would finally don the cold coat of late autumn. That knowledge motivated me to buy a new sleeping bag. I decided to use my old hiking boots since the little bit of resources I had left I wanted to keep for surviving the European winter. Knowing that my trip would only be for three months I reasoned that I wouldn’t need music. If only I had listened to my heart and not my mind. Still, once again, the shortage of resources did not allow me the luxury of buying a new Walkman.
Not long following the start of my trip, I realized what a mistake I had made to leave my music at home. I coped in the absence of music for six weeks. How I final ed that long still remains a mystery to me. Then, in Gdansk in Poland, I may no longer ignore the need for music. I bought a small portable radio and tape player. Tapes were cheap. I stocked up on a dozen tapes, from U2 and Marillion to the Doors and the Rolling Stones. Even though the quality of the radio’s one speaker was poor, it sounded like the perfect hi-fidelity sound I had heard up to that point in my life.
I did learn my lesson during that trip. Since then I have never traveled in the absence of music. I have also promised myself that I never will. Likewise, today, as opposed to those days, you do not need much space to take music with you whenever you go. With mp3 players, you may take all your favorite albums along. You may even make your own compilations and have your individual soundtrack ready for the journey. So, do not wait, just go.