Travels with Terry L Group

One experience that has stayed with me profoundly is witnessing the aftermath and legacy of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It was a deeply sobering encounter with history that put so much of the world into perspective and reminded me how fragile peace and civilization truly are. https://web.facebook.com/Terrylister.username In returning to a country you had visited before, which country pleased you the most? https://web.facebook.com/Terrylister.username I had to think long and hard about this, as over the past five years I have revisited a number of countries that I had explored in earlier times. However, I would have to say that my trip to the Caribbean in the summer of 2024 to attend the ICC Cricket World Cup was the most startling and memorable of all my revisits. During the glory years of West Indies cricket, I would travel to Barbados and two other islands every January. Over time, this passion for the game took me to more than 15 Caribbean islands — all because of cricket. Those were truly great times. In 2024, I visited Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia, and St Vincent — islands I had spent meaningful time on in the past. I expected it to feel like returning home, but I was genuinely shocked to find that I could hardly find my way around Barbados. Everything seemed so different. I did love the cricket stadium, which had been beautifully renovated for the ICC Twenty20 tournament back in 2007. That earlier tournament had seen my son and I based in Trinidad, but we did not visit Trinidad this time around, so returning to the other islands was quite an eye-opener. Antigua felt much the same — familiar in name but changed in feel. By the time we reached St Lucia, I was looking forward to it, as my son had joined me and I was sure he would remember our previous trip there. Not so. When I tried to prompt his memory, he simply said, "Dad, when we came here I was a little kid." Doing the math quickly, I realised he would have been around seven years old on that visit. We did both remember the magnificent Pitons, and we had a wonderful time there — but for the rest of the trip, we were essentially newbies all over again! What I truly took away from this experience is that many things sit comfortably in our memories, and if they are never challenged by present-day reality, those former experiences continue to feel like our truth. It was a humbling and thought-provoking realisation. Since retiring in 2014 with 48 countries visited, I have now been to 122 countries. With a personal target of over 300 countries, the question I now face is this — should I be weaving in revisits to places I loved back in 1985, or should I keep pushing forward to new destinations? What do you think? https://web.facebook.com/Terrylister.username