Appreciate Where You Are

Cape Town is the number one travel destination in the world.

Its beaches, mountains, history and wine have launched it ahead of all the other Destination Greats like Sydney, Rio and, the ultimate cool city, Barcelona.  Hey, I’m not making this up.   Tripadvisor said so.  And who dare question the great Tripadvisor?  As a current resident of this fair city it’s an honor to know my home of the last two years is topping bucket lists across the globe.

And it’s also a little strange.

After all, I’ve spent many a minute since moving here daydreaming about being somewhere else.  I while away the hours thinking about travelling to the faraway Philippines, nearby Namibia and everywhere in between.  Yet it turns out that while I am wishing to be there, more people are wishing to be here.

Just another Cape Town sunset

I was excited to move to Cape Town.  I visited once and was quickly enamoured by the Mother City’s beauty, rhythm and all the other travel clichés that have made her number one among you vocal travellers.  I sacrificed sunny afternoons in my previous home in Costa Rica to study maps of Cape Town and compare apartment listings.  She was destined to be the backdrop of my African experience.

But somewhere in the realities of daily life here, complete with an office job and traffic jams, Cape Town has become a place from which I pine for the next great move and big adventure.   I still marvel at her sunsets and fear her baby sharks, but a part of me has become immune to her charm.  Surely there are better, brighter points on the map than here!  Yet, according to my fellow travellers, there aren’t.  I am already in the best city in the world.

You might disagree.  You could argue that Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, maybe even Detroit is the best city in the world.  You could point out that there will soon be a new Tripadvisor survey and a new destination winner.  I hear you, but you have to admit Cape Town’s impressive.

The fact that Cape Town is the current Miss Congeniality of cities does not lessen my insatiable urge to travel.  But it does make me stop to consider that while certain obnoxities (is that a real word?) will continue to annoy me; she’s a pretty cool town.  I might even spend a little less time daydreaming about foreign lands and spend a little more time appreciating the one I’m in.

What’s great about where you are?