On the Timeless Nature of Travel
What makes travel so exciting and how I started traveling more
For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to travel.
Like most people.
Like you, probably. Unless you’re here because I asked you to read this.
But, if you’re like me then you’ve also dreamed about being paid to travel the world and eat food like all those exciting people on the Asian Food Channel.
And if you’re like me then you’ve lived your life facing pitiful smiles from adults half-heartedly telling you to work hard because unfortunately only the rich and famous can travel the world and eat to their heart’s content.
Hopefully, this is where our similarities end because I had always accepted this to be true. I cannot remember ever taking this dream seriously as something I could strive for. In its place, I internalized what people around me proclaimed and convinced myself to work hard so that one day I could travel freely.
And this, I feel, is where you rejoin me.
Travel is our retirement plan. Our dream life. The fruit of our labor. Our purpose for striving. For some reason, we’re all dreaming of some other place we would rather be in. It just so happens that place is never where we are now.
Unfortunately, I have to tell you that we will never achieve what we want. We will never be rich and successful enough to visit all 197 countries of the world. We will never be patient enough to stay in one job for 40+ years only to be rewarded with lackluster retirement benefits. And we will never have enough energy left over to complete our oddly similar bucket lists. Because we will never have enough time to both wait and do.
But we can start traveling.
I look back at my Batanes trip of 2010 with fascination because I know I enjoyed it but I cannot tell you exactly what I enjoyed. Rather, what has lived on with me, apart from my sorry attempt at a pike figure-four handstand, is the feeling of aliveness and excitement that drove me home from school the day before the trip.
I believe what attracts us to travel is not the destination itself but the frame of mind it rewards. Being in a foreign land forces us to be explorers, beginners, learners, and children again.
Traveling makes the world suddenly seem so beautiful. Yet, nothing truly changes except the eyes with which it is viewed. Ultimately, the land is only ‘foreign’ or ‘local’ to the person beholding it.
Hence, I learned that being a traveler is less about where we’re going or what we’re doing and more about how we see the world. Travel isn’t restricted to places away from home, travel is where we are, irrespective of time and place. Being a traveler is simply about allowing ourselves to get lost, to surrender to the unexpected, and to see the world anew with innocent kindness and youthful curiosity.
Travel is taking a walk around our office block to count the number of red cars stuck in traffic. Travel is sipping coffee by our doorsteps to wave “Good morning!” to our neighbors as they start their day. Travel is reading a book and letting it transform you for the moment. Travel is listening to trees dancing in the wind. Travel is choosing to chew slowly so we can savor anew our mom’s beef stew that we’ve already eaten thrice this week.
Travel can also be noticing the trash that litters our streets because no one cares enough to wait until they get home. Travel can be smelling the stink that comes from our toilet we haven’t cleaned in 3 weeks and 5 days. Travel can be sparing some change for the beggars who will knock routinely on our car windows tomorrow morning on our way to work.
Travel is choosing to see what’s around us. Travel is choosing to be curious about what we are feeling. Travel is choosing to risk a mistake so an adventure can unfold. Travel is choosing to live our dreams where we stand now–fully, completely, and shamelessly.
This piece was inspired by Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. The book was written in 1962, two years after Steinbeck went on a road trip across the United States with his dog, Charley.
His reflections toward the end of his journey are what made me realize travel has nothing to do with what we are doing or where we are. Here’s an excerpt that perfectly captures it for me:
“… Who has not known a journey to be over and dead before the traveler returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased… My journey started long before I left and was over before I returned.”
