Why do we travel?

It seems likely most people are seeking something. Maybe it’s some kind of knowledge or wisdom not available back home. Maybe it’s just an escape from the ordinary.

Let’s hear from Mark Twain on the matter:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

Lots of people go abroad in the hopes that encountering different ways of life will challenge the values they’ve been led to believe in. In becoming a foreigner, the familiar becomes unfamiliar and our conception of ‘normal’ crumbles before our eyes. The experience of being a foreigner is heavy with emotion. There is both fear and excitement in navigating a strange environment and a new culture, and above all the final realisation that life in ‘The West’ isn’t representative of the rest of the world. Young travellers sometimes see travel as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, or acquire the skills and independence that will help them make their way in the world.

Travel is central to many people’s identities — it can be anything from an indicator of great wealth to proof of an adventurous disposition. All the same, it would be foolishly cynical to imagine vanity as the main incentive for going abroad and tar all travellers with this brush. Millions of people hold travel up as life’s greatest pleasure — often imagining a spiritual dimension to the experience — and for many, future travel plans are the main motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

‘Wanderlust’ has a mysterious quality, and its ability to manifest itself in so many ways in different people gives it grounds to be regarded as a universal feature of being human.

A popular article on Medium points out that many of us turn to travel in order to escape the box of daily experience, only to find that we fall into the same routines and mindset no matter where we go. The author places it on the spectrum of ‘things we hope will give us happiness’ — it’s the very next step after discovering that physical possessions aren’t doing it.

At the end of the process, we are to realise that we must practice gratitude in order to find happiness within the bounds of the everyday, and stop looking elsewhere for it. Travel is consigned to the trash heap, along with every other source of external fascination and desire for the unknown. All such things are to be discarded in the name of gratitude.

It’s true that “Travel Is No Cure For The Mind.” We can’t find meaning in our lives simply by putting physical distance between ourselves and the places where bad habits, self doubt and purposelessness first set in. The feeling of being a foreigner is exciting — it can bring chaos into our sense of self and force us to acknowledge that many of the behaviours we considered ordinary are, in fact, the cultural artifacts we brought with us. What it can’t do is give us a sense of purpose we never had to begin with. As cliché as it sounds, that must ‘come from within.’

Unfortunately, the cult of gratitude doesn’t rise to meet this challenge. It asks of us — above all else — total compliance with the current state of affairs. If you’ve been fortunate in life, it’s a license to bask in privilege and not consider that some of your advantages might have come at the expense of others. If you’ve not been so fortunate, it’s a demand to keep your eyes down and know your place. Wanderlust must be repressed, along with anything that might detach you from your established comforts.

Gratitude is no cure for desire.

Falling in love with ordinary life is a wonderful idea. It doesn’t require a special ‘mindful’ practice, keeping a journal or sharing every positive experience we have on social media. It’s as straightforward as questioning our own pessimistic narratives; doubting our self-doubt. Seeing beauty in the world doesn’t mean tricking the mind into finding it or accepting the authority of some prescribed doctrine; it just means believing what we already see.

If your heart’s desire is to abandon everything and start a new life in a brand new place, how can any guru or mentor conscionably hold you captive?

Of course, every traveller can hear themselves thinking ‘I could live here’ — especially when they wake up in paradise. But there is a broad chasm to cross between paradise and home, not to mention between admiring a culture from afar and becoming intimate with it. The metamorphosis from traveller to fully-fledged expat is not straightforward. The sheer number of everyday questions — where do I pay my bills?; what local health risks should I be aware of?; how can I legally stay as a long-term resident? — can be truly overwhelming.

The naysayers are right — paradise doesn’t remain paradise for long.

The idealised vision of our chosen country quickly falls apart and we are forced to address our own ludicrous assumptions and stereotypes. Plenty of expats can’t withstand this confrontation, and either return home or — worse — retreat into resentful enclaves of likeminded émigrés and eke out an existence entirely separate from the local community. But for those who embrace the reality of life abroad with all its ups and downs, the idea of paradise simply loses its sway. In its place is something far more powerful — a box of everyday activities that has been chosen and built rather than inherited or sleepwalked into. Who needs paradise when you have home?

How do you go about finding yourself at home thousands of miles from where you’ve lived for most of your life? Once prejudice and oversimplified ideas about other cultures have been discarded, the concept of ‘the exotic’ no longer has a foundation to stand on. In the course of making new friends, settling into accommodation and establishing a routine, the great chasm between paradise and home simply disappears. The big lesson is that ‘the box of daily activities’ is something you possess, rather than a sublime reality that chases you halfway across the world. If anything, the freedom to choose your new ordinary is dizzying. There’s no correct answer to the question of what it’s worth spending time on. It’s a decision that belongs to you, with inspiration from your friends and your environment. The ‘box’ can feel restrictive because there are so many activities we feel we ‘must’ do; activities that maintain our health and income, for instance. But putting your affairs in order needn’t be something you do alone. Expats in Thailand, for instance, can work with an organisation like Iglu to manage their health insurance, taxes and career development.

After living in a foreign country for a few months, the food, the social customs and even the climate just aren’t a novelty anymore. The most fascinating thing about travelling to the other side of the world isn’t how different everything is. It’s how similar it is.

Even in Southeast Asia, gravity is still gravity.