Why should people travel?

[Matt Derrick]

Hey everyone here's another question for the community. I've writing a small section for my book about why people should travel. I'm not necessarily asking why you travel (although it's helpful if you post that too), but rather what would you tell non-travelers to convince them to travel. why should they travel?

 

[EphemeralStick]

People should travel for many reasons but the biggest in my book is for self-improvement. When you're out on the road you learn so many new things about yourself and the world around you that you just don't get when you're staying stationary.

Travel teaches people a valuable lesson in humility and respect. By seeing other places you learn about other ways of life, other social classes, and the difference between regional mentalities. It's easy to sit on your couch and make assumptions about places you've never been, in fact most of my friends who don't travel are constantly doing this.

I love the feeling of seeing some place new for the first time. I love getting a firsthand experience and being able to form my own solid opinions of places I've seen. I love being able to meet all sorts of unique and interesting people.

That's why I travel

 

[Kim Chee]

I find myself using the word "should" more than I should

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/why-the-word-should-can-be-harmful-3-empowering-alternatives/

I feel I might be potentially setting myself up if I attempted to convince a non-traveller to begin traveling. In other words, If you have it in you...just go as you would, you don't need me to motivate you. If you are not a traveler, and I convince you to travel, it would be lame for me to do so unless I were willing and able to assist you to make that transition.

I am far more likely to try to talk would-be travelers out of traveling as it might not be as "easy" as some would-be travelers might make it out to be.

 

[LostHobo]

Oh, if all non-traveller starts travelling, we'll run out of dumpster! Stay home, go to work, send your old trousers to the triftshop, especially if you are a 30, there hard to find these days...

But if you fancy travelling, do it because you're fecking curious, like adventure and want to test you limits! I agree with @EphemeralStick that it is horizon expending, but also with @7xMichael that it would be lame to "trick" a non-traveller into travelling and having them running through a shitty experience because I think it's the bomb (like non-traveller trying to convince us to get "real" and get a job and a house and a pension...)

I travel 'cause I'm curious as hell, I feel alive when I don't know what in the hell is happening and it keeps depression at bay for me. in other word, it makes me feel like life has something of interest to offer me beside work and consumption of stuff I don't want...

 

[Brother X]

If someone asked me, "Why should I travel?" I'd reply, "Why indeed?"

 

[Kal]

@EphemeralStick said it all, it's a good way to learn to see something new. Louis L' Amour had this to say, I have learned more from traveling than I have from books. I agree with L' Amour because I have learned more by traveling then I did in school.

 

[Deleted member 125]

i started travelling because i was depressed. i was tired of watching people around me drink themselves to death and waste their lives away at meaningless work that didnt satisfy them at all. it was a itch i caught in my teenage years and hasnt gone away even pushing 30 now. ive slowed down and do acknowledge now that spending my time drinking in bushes and waiting on the next train doesnt satisfy me anymore then tending my garden or making the candles that i sell for a living does, i think if i kept moving as much as i did ide be burned out and even more depressed them i was when i started. its important to keep moving and to see whats out there for you but also its nice to know where you stand in life and have something to come back to.

 

[DrAwqward]

Hey everyone here's another question for the community. I've writing a small section for my book about why people should travel. I'm not necessarily asking why you travel (although it's helpful if you post that too), but rather what would you tell non-travelers to convince them to travel. why should they travel?

Matt, I travel because of the demons that are quieted by my journey. When ever I am in one place too long, Heroin always seems to find me. So essentially its never been about the destination for me, the journey has become the goal, because it is pretty much one of the only ways I can stay sober. Its impossible to maintain a habit (for me personally) while trying to set up a tarp in a forest while its pouring own rain. I would drown! Am I running? Coming or going? As long as I am still breathing, I find those questions moot.

 

[Matt Derrick]

those are all excellent and interesting answers. thank you for taking the time to post them, it really helped me get over the mental block i was having regarding this subject. i think we should keep this thread running for others that might have the same question (and i might link to it in the book) so i'm totally down to hear anyone else's answer to this question...

 

[moofasaorcasperorwhatever]

a girl in dallas told me that the world is a book and those that dont travel only read one page i dont know if she made it up or was quoting someone but i like it.

 

[Matt Derrick]

a girl in dallas told me that the world is a book and those that dont travel only read one page i dont know if she made it up or was quoting someone but i like it.

i've never heard that before, it's a good quote!

 

[Desperado Deluxe]

I think that travelling is really about finding yourself. I have so many ideas about what I'm going to do when I settle down. things I cant do now but have discovered from exploring the world around me. I also have a better idea of where I want to end up when I settle down. I've also learned that even after I settle down I can grab the ol' bag of gear and hit the highway if shit gets tough or I just feel like it. Through travelling I have discovered that I have the strength and skill to go anywhere and do whatever I please. It probably never would have happened if I stayed in my hometown working a shit dead end job.

 

[uniparemassilmas]

Why to travel, is simple answer: to see other places. But here comes the difference: How to travel, and why you do it like this? You can travel to everywhere with plane, and eat only your cultural food, go to museums, and follow travelling guidelines. It could be great trip too, but I think it just gives people a change to cross out country name in some "bucket list". "oooh, wow, you have been in Spain?" or smth. But besides the "i was there" feeling it does not give so much difference than just siting at home, reading traveling books, and watching pictures.

But why to travel in alternative way? To FEEL other places, to have experience. Getting feeling of other cultures. And most of all: what it all says about you, as well. We all know sterotypes, and have some kind of imagination (not that word I need, but sorry for my bad english ) what some country would look like, or people there... but is it always right? I doubt about it alot.
If you hitchhike, and stay in locals place, you will get the point how people actually are thinking. How often are you able to talk with foreigns in your country? And eating in some countries resturants gives us idea of the food, what sells. Do they really make that kind of food, what their own country people really like, or what gives them a thought that this is what people want to buy? Every country sells something "italian" or "french", but go to actually italy, and people will tell you that they don't like this BS at all (at least not like this, how it's in markets).
Or politics. News give us false imagination how some countries are, although it's just state what thinks like this, not its people. Visit local family and see how father reacts to their politicans decisions.

So, shortly: just to break sterotpes, and prejudices, and get experience.

About self learning: just to get out of your comfort zone. To find out how you could handle some situations. Even if you don't have "normal" (for our society) life: you live on the streets, for example, it's still easier at your own hometown, where you know people and places. What time shops will be closed, where its easy to dumpster dive, how cops will react and so on... But ending up totally broke in unknow place: a nice way to learn about life, and you.

 

[PotBellyFatGuy]

i travel for opening and closing chapters in my life. alternatively when i don;t have money, i travel virtually. this past summer, i opened up a youtube video of cathay pacific airlines boarding music (listen to it for a minute or so as it gets better)



, made believe i was going into first class, sat in my folded bed, closed my eyes and relaxed, then enjoyed a home cooked pasta meal with cool orange juice. i then visited airpano.com (yes i am a link dropper). check out that site actually. visited a few countries there. felt great that i had no stress and it all cost nothing. for that reason, i love travel on the cheap. no stress as i only take my backpack and take the cheapest way out.

 

[THE REAL SCAVENGER]

I travel mostly because I like to meet people. There's something really cool about passing through towns and the only interaction you get with anyone is a 15 minute conversation with a local and you tell them what you are doing and then you keep on going. It's kind of a lot less intimate and more intimate than staying in one place with the same people all the time. I guess there is a lot of reasons why I travel. I honestly don't know what else I would be doing. Unchecked consumerism is very pointless to me, might as well do something cool with the money I do have

 

[creature]

it looks like there are a lot of great posts, here, & i need to read them when i have some time after finishing up the last couple of items for hitting the road in the next 24 hours (hopefully fucking less)..

existence *is* traveling..

no one stays anywhere..
time, whether or not it exists, is perceived because of change..

traveling is just making *more* change happen...

if perception (& thus self-existence) is dependent upon change,

& if perception is the extent to which we actually exist, then traveling actually & *directly*, increases us.

knowledge is another for of travel,

as is imagination..

the thing about traveling *well*, though, whether it be geographic movement, the study of stars or inquiries into the fine structures of life & the universe,
or the actions & history of what it is that brought us to where we *are*
is that we use our travels as a *tool*..

people who travel well do *not* just "see shit".

people who travel well travel into the existences of *others*, & when you start traveling into *others*,
you start to share *life*..

fuck the stars & trees & lakes & flowers & clouds, if all they are is "pretty"..

go watch a fucking movie, while you are slowly recycled & turned into a tasty, green cracker..

just put a big screen on the inside of the $300,000 fucking RVs..
jesus..

travel because if you don't, you will be happy with VR..

travel because when you travel, you meet travelers...

& *those* fuckers, skinny as they are,
throw a *hell* of a lot of meat
into
the Pot..

 

[Rob Nothing]

Travel is the closest analogy I can think of to becoming a better, stronger, more empathetic person. There are too often great distances between us, literal and figurative miles, and I think it is people that are prepared to conquer that distance that are more likely to find real happiness and fulfillment in their lives. It is an analogy, and it can't work for everybody, but the kind of longing that brings one to travel is universal and one that can't be ignored.

 

[Whereamiwhatdoido]

People should travel because of the times we live in. Our world has changed increasingly faster over the last century, and here we are. In real time, you can watch a person sitting on the other site of the planet, speaking to you, winking an eye to you, interacting with someone who is nowhere near you.

As a generalisation people think they know other cultures, they think they know about their values, their ethics, foods, clothes, facial expressions.. But they've seen it on television.

So again, people should travel because of the times we live in. It's completely possible for the majority to travel, because travelling is really just moving from where you are now, and submerging into another place, then you've travelled so far. If you then don't like it, you can go back, and you have travelled, atleast a little, and you'll have something to compare with. On the other hand, if you like it, you can always just move on to another destination.

What I'm saying is just that, people should travel because they can, they'll have a different perspective when they've got a broader view of the world we live in. When you've been immersed in a culture that isn't the one you grew up in, you'll be able to question wether or not your culture is the better. Then improvement can happen, developing into a more pleasant culture. That improvement can have good attributes towards your local community, as you have more to offer.