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What’s your answer to exhaustion and burnout? Travel, isn’t it? I’m sure 9 out of 10 people would say the same. Travel, somewhere away from all the stress and mundanities of life. Yes, travel has to and probably should be the answer. It is an escape from everyday life that often gets too much to handle. I crave for it. I think we all probably do after a point of time doing the same things day in and day out.

If you had talked to me about travelling as a result of burnout a couple of years earlier, I would have probably tagged it as a rich man’s ailment. But now I know better. Every time reality gets too constricting, I look for my answers in travels.

But where do I wish to go?

There is this picture of a place that I conjured up in my thoughts some time ago, a place that I frantically look at for an escape. And I’m sure it must exist too. A small bungalow nestled in the middle of a tea estate, everything green and misty surrounding it. A stream flowing somewhere close by and nothing that reminds me of the busy life I lead in Bangalore. A place where I wake up early in the morning to go for walks breathing in the fresh air. A place where I can sit on the verandah to write while sipping on piping hot tea with the rhythmic sounds of the stream and the chirping birds in the background. A place which seems to be calling out to me. But then where could I find such a place?

Well, the answer came to me very unexpectedly from unassuming quarters. While travelling home last week, I met this woman on our Indigo flight. She was seated next to me and as we got talking, sharing stories of our similar backgrounds and lifestyles, she told me about her week-long break in Wayanad. Exhausted as a working mom she too needed a respite and that’s when her family took her away for a week. She recuperated from the demands of life in that gem of the South. I think she stayed in the paradise resorts while there. She showed me some pictures too and I immediately knew where I had to go to. She even told me that she would go back there again such was the aura of Wayanad. It is the silence there that touched her heart, healed her in a sense and at that moment I envied her.

Truth is I don’t get many breaks to travel. But this time I need to because the stress is overwhelming and I’m drowning in this strange unsympathetic race of life. Unless I want the burnout to be a constant state of being for me, I need to head out. Make the reluctant traveller a willing one, for a few days at least.

Tell me, where would you want to travel to if you found yourself burnt out of exhaustion.