Growing up, the best minutes I had were always on the go, hitting the road with friends and families. Hardly ever, I spent any staycation by myself or cooped up at home. As soon as much-awaited weekcation took over boarding schools, every holiday was gemmed with sightseeing, laughters, outdooring adventures, picturesque natural scenery, good food, and good company. Even in the worst scenario, going nowhere always turns out to be somewhere other than the house—it is an understatement, to say the least. Put another way, living desk-free and out of a suitcase is much more natural to me. Since it is a built-in feature as part of my DNA, it is the prime signature of my childhood all the way up to my early adolescence, if it can be briefly captured in words.

Truth be told, to a great extent, either spontaneously on a whim or sweepy put together a plan, our nonstop voyages were marked by a small fleet of vehicles made up of my father’s college and high school friends or his blood relatives — always teamtripped as a big family as well as perennial improv-nomads. Rain or shine, heartbeat travel and like as not rolling in the mountains — from eye-catching touristy attractions to time-honored, unassuming villages, from breathtaking national parks to local goers’ leisure hidden gems, from marvelous museums to modest temples, from astounding stone forests to no-two-the-same ancestral heritages, from deeply relatable arts and crafts to entirely unfamiliar folklore or cuisines, you name it. Even today, as an unwavering Hodophile, inter alia, road trippers, the go-to question at all times that bounces off the lazy Susan, would be — So, What’s Next?

With that said, here is a tiny glimpse into my good old días, when the KODAK film camera was still in its heyday, when selfie was still unborn from Motorola Razr, when the red Volkswagen Santana was still a head-turner, when the in-dash cassette player still airs yesterday once more… 🚗