We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.
This is the first paragraph in his article "Why We Travel," an article I keep coming back to because it's a stunning description of what many of us find when we leave home behind. Here's one more sentence:
Yet for me the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle.
Now, if you wish, read his article.
1 comment:
I really like this article. I agree that traveling provides "a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed."
Traveling to or living in a new country always forces me to reconsider what I think of as normal. And I've had such interesting conversations with people I've met in other countries. It seems like it's easy to jump into a relatively deep conversation about culture, politics, etc, when you're in a foreign country. It's always interesting to see how others view the U.S.
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