Editorial: Voyage
I’d like an upgrade. Not to first class. Not to the travelers’ lounge. Not to the penthouse or even the double suite with park views.
No, I’d like to upgrade my travel to a *~voyage~*.
“Travel” sounds simple, bougie, possibly intrusive. But to go on a voyage sounds like you’re having an experience that will leave you changed. The traveling part of a voyage might be planned, but the discoveries and surprises aren’t.
My one and only voyage—as I see it—was when I was twenty-five and being sent to the other side of Earth. It was the first time I’d ever left my country, let alone my hemisphere. To say that I was out of my element is an understatement. I didn’t know the language, I didn’t look like the locals, I didn’t understand their culture. I was constantly awkward and in awe.
Making a list of these experiences to prove my point seems equally awkward. What was strange and unusual to me might be an everyday occurrence to someone else, although I maintain to this day that not everyone gets to ride the King of Bahrain’s camels. Or watch the British Royal Navy launch water balloons into the Indian Ocean. And while many folks here in the U.S. were able to catch the aurora borealis a few weeks ago, how many people have seen it from a plane on a red eye to London? These are the moments I go to when the ice breaker calls for “one fun fact about yourself.”
Since my voyage, I’ve had the privilege to travel frequently, and with each trip, there is the expected upheaval of routine, the Insta-worthy views, the memories, the snafus that we laugh about later. But none of these trips have replicated the absolute change in body, mind, and soul that that journey had.
A voyage isn’t just longer, it’s more meaningful. And while I don’t think anyone needs to undertake a voyage, I find myself grateful to have had mine.
July’s issue is looking at the voyage–where are these characters going and what do they encounter? Most importantly, how have they changed? First up, returning FFO author Rich Larson gives us a sci-fi pilgrimage in “Ascension’s Eve.”
In “Salisbury Confederate Prison, North Carolina, 1864” by Tess Lloyd, we encounter a traveling journalist that has been captured and imprisoned in an American Civil War POW camp.
Vivian Chou offers a snarky view of the travel industry in the White Lotus-meets-Close Encounters story “Perfect Vaca, No Filter.”
Finally, our reprint story for this month is Jennifer Hudak’s “Sturgeon Moon Jam,” a cozy fantasy about a mystical being that travels to the Chickasee County fair every year.
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