Do it for the Smells…

You know those travel experiences where you happen upon a smell so lovely, so poignant; familiar, yet striking; and as it hits you, you think, “Ah, the sweet smell of…Newark International!” No, not for you? Well, trust me, I never thought I’d have that thought either. But after a few months abroad, a record snow storm, being stuck inside for weeks, subsisting on souvenir shortbread cookies, and getting a last-minute miracle flight home on Christmas Eve, anything is possible. 

Touching down and stepping off the plane in Newark, I was hit with a wall of, let’s be honest, gross smells. It’s a stale, damp, garbage smell. In that moment my olfactory sensors were beeping like mad, telling me, “you’re on the way home!” I started recognizing all of these little smells that I would never have noticed or appreciated that signaled to me “America”.  (The most direct of these being the smell of the bucket of fried chicken the woman in my row brought on the plane.) After travelling through Europe and experiencing some of the most amazing sights, sounds, and tastes, I never would have guessed one of the most memorable sensory experiences would be coming home. 

The salty smell of a beach can never be fully replicated

There’s something about smells. Of all of our senses it may be the most primal and deeply ingrained. Smell is the only sense you can’t recall from memory, but it is so very connected to memory. A simple smell can evoke a wide range of emotions and take you deep into the memory vault for things you never even realized you saved. From that moment in the Newark airport, it’s a sense I’ve given a lot more credit and attention to when I travel.

Walking through the cloud forest in Costa Rica brought with it the vibrant greenery, sounds of foreign birds and insects, and the way the muddy earth smelled so rich, yet light. It hung with me even back on the tour bus, even back in town when I was eating rice and beans for the eighth time in as many days. 

Waiting in line for a bakery in Iceland, I notice not just the yeast and sugar, but the unique salty and volcanic scent of the surrounding land. Even in the frigid wind, I had the tastiest pastries, somehow enhanced by the sulfuric tinge to the air. 

Road trips from Colorado to Missouri shifted from being all about the visual descent from high desert mountains through the plains to the green rolling hills, to the change from crisp-coniferous mountain air to a sweet-tangy humid breeze. 

The bustling sights and smells of La Boqueria in Barcelona

La Boqueria in Barcelona, a market equalling the vibrancy of the city, made my mouth water over the salty meats, juicy sticky colorful fruits, wispy Catalonian Spanish, puddles and raining yellow petals, all seared with the hot sea air.

Kayaking on a lake in the western Ireland countryside, I enjoyed the peaceful calm of dusk on the water, rolling hills spotted with livestock, the way the light glistened on the ripples my paddle made on the glassy water surface, and yet, somehow, the serenity of it all wouldn’t be complete without the smell of the cow pies drifting on the breeze. 

The author clearly enjoying the scents of the Isle of Skye’s Fairy Pools

On the Isle of Skye I hiked through hail and jumped in the freezing Fairy Pools surrounded by heather, shocked by the sublime clarity and dramatic scope of the landscape.  The magic of this day was solidified after heading straight to a tasting at one of the oldest distilleries to inhale the peaty, smoky, uisge na beatha.

Travel is spectacular because of the newness of the experience. There’s so much to take in when you embark on an adventure to a faraway place, especially if you’re engaging with a different culture. There’s an element of wanting to capture it all and thankfully our bodies do some of that work for us without the need to be snapping a photo every five seconds. Smell is our sensory clearing house that confirms for us, this is new, this is safe, this will be delicious, this is worth remembering, this is home. 

When I’ve had the privilege to return to a favorite destination, I revel in the fact that I’ll be greeted not just by familiar sights and sounds, but that as I take a breath, I’ll be filled with the warmth of my previous experiences there. Now, Newark International won’t ever be on my list of favorites, however, I’ll never forget the powerful feeling of connecting with a place on an unconscious level and the catalyst it was for appreciating a stealthy element of the travel experience.  

Before you travel you can watch all the documentaries and scroll through all the Instagram photos about a place, you can listen to local music or nature sounds, practice the language, eat the cultural food; but you can never prepare for the smells. The smell will tie all of those things together in a bow and build you a roadmap to access memory and emotion that’s impossible to plan for. So next time you’re heading to a new place, make sure to take some deep breaths, stop to smell the roses – or – the salty air, yeasty bakery, crowded train station—whatever, just savor it 😊