Why Travel?

Why Travel?

Travel is uncomfortable, at times. Dangerous, others. By traveling, you expose to yourself to unknown danger – to types of danger you have never even thought about.

What a crock. (except for the part about sometimes uncomfortable).

Part of the “dangerous” statement is true. The realty is, that more often than not the place you live right now is more dangerous than where you want to travel. Like anywhere, bad things can happen to you. The uncomfortable part is that you may not know what to do next (that is, if you are unfamiliar with the area you in which you are traveling).

Chances are though, it is less likely that bad things will happen to you while you’re traveling, than it is when you are in your hometown.

Unless you’re an ass.

If you are then all bets are off.

Bad things happen more often if you’re an ass – because you piss off people who then want to teach you a lesson to get back at you.

Easy lesson – when traveling, don’t be an ass; and everything is usually okay.

Once I have been somewhere a few days and I get to know people, I feel safe. I drive very little, I’m happy because I’m not stressed at work, I’m not in a hurry – and all these qualities lead to me being less likely to get into a bad situation in the first place. Which only makes me more relaxed, then happier, then making more friends, then safer, then more relaxed, then happier…

And this bliss manifests itself into curiosity, because – everything is different than what you are used to experiencing. Life becomes more novel. Appreciation increases for the little things in life: conversations with new people, different tasting (and often delicious) food, music playing rhythms you’ve never heard before that are really grooving.

All of this novelty, curiosity and appreciation leads to openness. And now you’re really leaving yourself open for new experiences with other people and places.

Every single day of your life, the events of others and of the place you live unfold around you – and you may barely even notice. We get caught in the work rut, and take our daily lives for granted. Just add a small twist to your daily work rut – say, your job is processing coca leaves into cocaine – and that turns into something novel.

(Video by Cvillemac)

That is part of the beauty of travel. The movie was taken of someone else’s work rut. That guy makes cocaine every day – and he probably hates his job. He complains about his boss the drug lords. How is he any different than you or I at our jobs?

Yet because of the novelty, I found the movie of his daily work rut to be fascinating.

Bizarre.

The best part – there are too many places on this planet, with different people going about their different lives in their different environments – that you could never take it all in. There is just too much variety to the human existence. Too many places with unique landscapes and life and climates.

All over the world there are people just like us – going about their lives and occasionally letting it all hang out. At first they may seem different. Actually, just driving the length of California one can see large cultural differences between people. And it’s always novel. There is plenty of novelty to be found – just traveling town to town.

Sometimes you may see the novelty as something bordering on obscene…
The Cramps

And other times, the novelty will appear hauntingly beautiful…
Amelia Lalala Human Steps‏


And that is why I travel – the novelty is fascinating.