Travel As A Political Act

The most common definition of travel is a kind of physical movement from one place to another one. For me, travel means broadening my horizon and enjoying delicious food. I think most of travelers have the same purpose with me—broadening their horizon. Travelling is really a good way for people to learn many new things like the different customs, different clothes, different building styles and so on. These things can enrich my experience, as an old saying in Chinese: “Reading ten thousand books study less than walking ten thousand kilometers road.” Every time when I am going to travel to some place, I will search for some information about these places on the Internet but I found that I only know a small part of them, many facts and interesting thins are waiting for us to explore by ourselves. When I arrive in a new place, I will go to the most famous local restaurant at once and tastes delicious food there, it is not obvious in the USA but in my country, people live in different provinces have different habits about their food and sometimes the same food will have many kinds of method cooking them, tasting them make me so happy.

In the book “Travel as a Political Act”, written by Rick Steves, travel as a political act should follow these rules. First, travelling like a Medieval Jester, it means people should travel around and learn the truth of the world by ourselves. Second, people should find the purpose of travelling and try to be a temporary local. Thirdly, people should learn to connect with local when they are travelling because it is a best way to learn a lot about the place that you are visiting. Forth, people should stow their preconceptions and be open to new experiences, as travelers, they should prepare to meet many things which are totally different from what you meet in their daily life. So they must be open-minded and try to receive them. Also, during our journeys, people need to take history seriously, overcome fear, celebrate all dreams, gimme that old-time religion with an international spin, choose to be challenged, see the rich and poor gap for themselves.