‘I wasn’t the same person after this visit’: Three travel writers remember a mindset-altering trip of a lifetime

The most revelatory journeys not only transport us for a moment, but also leave us forever change. Here, three travel writers detail their most transformative trips. 　

Lisa Jackson recalls an eye-opening experience in the Great Barrier Reef

I never imagined chasing giant clams on my holiday. I’d been snorkelling forever in the Coral Sea, searching for the elusive Clam Garden. Just as I’m about to quit, I see it: an underworld of huge, bony mollusks with zigzagging mouths and violet mantles. As I glide over top, the shells snap shut one by one.

It’s just one of the spectacles on Australia’s idyllic Lizard Island. I’ve flown 240 kilometres north of Cairns in a tiny Cessna to this far-flung protected park because it’s one of the best places for exploring the Great Barrier Reef. “Just walk down to the beach,” says the concierge at the island’s one and only resort. “The reef is right there.”

He’s not lying. Wading into the turquoise waters, I snorkel into what Jacques Cousteau called “a living kaleidoscope”: colourful coral and schools of clownfish. A marble ray chills out on the ocean floor, perhaps loafing after lunch, and sea turtles swim nearby. It feels surreal, like a National Geographic doc.

Back on land, I venture down the road to the Lizard Island Research Station to get a closer look at this wonder of the world. A marine biologist gives me a tour — and an earful about how the climate crisis is endangering the reef.

“With rising sea temperatures, the reef is at greater risk of heat stress and mass coral bleaching,” she says. “A few degrees warmer can kill these sensitive creatures.” The scientist holds up a stark white skeleton — a shocking contrast to the vibrant coral colonies I witnessed underwater.

She lists more facts and figures that leave me reeling: The Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral populations since 1995, and some scientists predict its extinction by 2050. There’s more than beauty at stake: Millions rely on reef fish for protein, so losing that food supply could trigger a humanitarian crisis, and coral reefs everywhere act as medicine cabinets — providing possible treatments for all sorts of conditions.

On the plane back to Cairns, I stare down at the reef and hold back tears. Once a distant, abstract threat, climate change now seems very real and personal. My souvenir from Lizard Island isn’t a pretty shell or incredible pictures: It’s a reality check about the climate catastrophe.

I wasn’t the same person after this visit — and that’s a good thing.

Lisa Jackson is a writer in Hamilton, Ont., who began covering climate issues wholeheartedly after this trip.

Hina Husain reflects on an intrepid daughter-mother journey to northern Pakistan

The aroma of barbecued chicken sajji fills the air as Mom and I sit on a wicker charpai engulfed by soft smokiness coming off the charcoal fire. Shades of pink and indigo diffuse through the twilight sky above us, silhouettes of surrounding mountains framed by fluffy, granite-grey clouds. Old Bollywood tunes play on a radio, enticing us to sing along with the static-laden soundtrack.

“I still can’t believe we’re here,” Mom says for the dozenth time, Kishore Kumar’s Sara Zamana fading out in the background.

“Here” is Shogran, a hill station on a green plateau in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s mountainous northern provinces. We’re on a two-week tour of the north — just the two of us, apart from a driver provided by the travel agency — journeying through Naran, Hunza Valley, Gilgit and finally Shogran, before we make our way back to Islamabad.

Mom and I had meticulously planned this trip for months back home, in Etobicoke, thinking of every possible precaution. Even today, it’s highly unusual for two women to travel in Pakistan without a male relative’s escort. My mother’s family tried their best to dissuade us from going, but we were determined.

When I was younger and lived in Lahore, we’d often travel to Pakistan’s northern regions with my late father, a daredevil who fearlessly charged our Land Cruiser over rickety bridges suspended above whitewater rapids, wife and three children in tow.

It’s been 20 years since we were last in Shogran, but time doesn’t seem to hold any meaning for these immortal valleys. The jeep ride up to Siri Paye from Shogran is just as I remember — rugged and steep, the zigzagging gravel road too narrow for more than one off-road vehicle’s safe passage, air heavy with the scents of fir and pine trees lining the trail.

But our harrowing voyage is soon forgotten when we arrive at the lush, pastoral meadows of Siri at the track’s end. To reach Paye Lake, we climb onto horses adorned in colourful handicrafts and ornaments, their keepers leading the way across serene rolling hills. Silently trotting to our destination, Mom turns to me and, just above a whisper, says, “I feel like I can do anything now.”

I smile back and reply, “Me, too.”

Hina Husain is a Toronto-based writer and photographer who’s lived in five countries across Asia and North America.

Karen Burshtein recollects the covert wonders of the French backcountry

For several years, I lived in a small town near Monaco on the French Riviera. And whenever I got fed up with the artificiality of life there, which became often, I headed to a place that, while quick to reach, could not be farther away in spirit. “L’arrière-pays niçois,” the mountainous Nice backcountry straddling the French-Italian border, is called the Roya Valley, but it’s also aptly named Vallée des Merveilles, or “Valley of Wonders.”

It’s a fascinating area (and quite different from the backcountry towns closer to Cannes, such as Saint-Paul de Vence, made famous by artists). Unlike most of this region, the Roya Valley did not become France until 1947, so it retains a strong Italian feel. The villagers’ hybrid Italian-Provençal accents are as thick as the clouds rolling over the mountain.

Going from another sunny day on the Riviera (a rather redundant phrase) and spindly Mediterranean palms to a carpet of alpine flowers, and apple trees caressed by a sweet cool breeze, in under an hour never ceased to amaze me.

The wonders in the valley are both natural and man-made: Perched Italianate villages, hanging on for dear life for five centuries, are reached by endless hairpin turns up the mountain.

In Saorge, there is a spectacular collection of Renaissance-era organs, which were carried up on donkeys’ backs. In La Brigue, we’d visit the 14th-century Notre-Dame des Fontaines, a tiny chapel built on the remains of a pagan temple near local springs that mysteriously emerge from the rocks. Inside, a remarkable, if gruesome, 15th-century fresco depicting The Last Judgement, painted by Italian masters Canavesio and Baleison, has earned it the moniker the “secret Sistine Chapel.” The last village up, Saint-Dalmas de Tende, had its own tragicomic wonder: an enormous train station, far outsized for the small village, with Mussolini’s stamp all over it.

A day spent visiting these river valley villages would often end with a dinner of Swiss chard ravioli, and a matching dessert: the oddly delicious tarte aux blettes, a puff pastry pie of Swiss chard, pine nuts and powdered sugar. After spending the night at Tende, we’d start the next day hiking up a Mercantour mountain, where tens of thousands of Bronze Age petroglyphs top off this ultimate magical mystery tour.

First among the Valley of Wonders’ many charms for me was its seeming secrecy — it’s not very well known to visitors, though it’s part of a national park. Exploring it shaped a travel philosophy that stays with me still: It became the impetus for an obsession with finding the clandestine everywhere I go, whether it’s hiding in the hills or in a city neighbourhood.

Karen Burshtein is an award-winning travel and culture writer based in Winnipeg.

The Star understands the restrictions on travel during the coronavirus pandemic. But like you, we dream of travelling again, and we’re publishing this story with future trips in mind.