Thinking about travel
I've been thinking about travel quite a bit lately. I guess that's mainly because I've been traveling a bit more for work recently. I used to always want to take business trips. I thought it commanded some kind of respect, and displayed a certain level of achievement. These days business travel is more of a headache than anything else. Most of my trips are single-day trips. Which makes for one heck of a busy day. Two flights in the same day (in two directions - not connecting flights) just takes the energy right out of you. The funny thing is - in many ways I prefer these trips, because it means I don't have to spend a night away from home. While I love travel, seeing the globe, experiencing different cities and such, I guess I don't love it more than laying my head down on my own pillow next to my wife at night.
But besides business travel, there's real travel. Travel for the sake of travel. Vacation, if you will. My wife is Japanese, so we go to Japan often, at least once per year. This used to be vacation - now it's just seeing family. I say that as though its not interesting anymore, which couldn't be further from the truth. But after going 5 or 6 times, you have seen every touristy place at least once, and it begins to be more about the family than the place. But there are still those little moments - when I'm alone on the train, a bit lost or confused, or hunting down a favorite house of mine, with music going on my headphones and the perfectly trimmed boxwoods gliding past me as I walk on the textured sidewalks of Tokyo - that the rush of seeing things you've never seen before comes back to me.
But back to real travel. What I personally love is learning things, rather than relaxing. People sometimes make fun of me for never having gone to the Bahamas, on cruises, or even Hawaii. While this does sound nice every so often - the sand between your toes, the fresh beer while watching the sun go down over the ocean - I feel like there just might not be enough time for something like that. Living in the US, its so hard(and expensive) for us to experience different cultures, since our country is so large. In Europe, you can travel 2 hours by car and experience 4 completely different cultures, languages, cuisines. It is the same to an extent in the US, but nowhere near as grand. So I feel like I'm behind the 8-ball on travel. There are so many great places to see, so many different types of food to eat, and currency to spend, that every trip has to be to a new place. The list is impossibly long, but it never hurts to look into the future and say "someday, I'll be there."
I can remember a distinct feeling for each place I've been. Sometimes its from a scent that won't leave me(Japan). Sometime its a taste(Rome), sometime its a temperature(LA, California). Sometime it's a vision(Hartford, CT), or sometime its just a moment that I keep remembering over and over(Vals, Switzerland). But every place has something. And these bits of my life that stay with me are what make it so great.
I love travel, and I think knowing the world, and always wanting to know more of the world and its people is the greatest gift this planet can give us.
But besides business travel, there's real travel. Travel for the sake of travel. Vacation, if you will. My wife is Japanese, so we go to Japan often, at least once per year. This used to be vacation - now it's just seeing family. I say that as though its not interesting anymore, which couldn't be further from the truth. But after going 5 or 6 times, you have seen every touristy place at least once, and it begins to be more about the family than the place. But there are still those little moments - when I'm alone on the train, a bit lost or confused, or hunting down a favorite house of mine, with music going on my headphones and the perfectly trimmed boxwoods gliding past me as I walk on the textured sidewalks of Tokyo - that the rush of seeing things you've never seen before comes back to me.
But back to real travel. What I personally love is learning things, rather than relaxing. People sometimes make fun of me for never having gone to the Bahamas, on cruises, or even Hawaii. While this does sound nice every so often - the sand between your toes, the fresh beer while watching the sun go down over the ocean - I feel like there just might not be enough time for something like that. Living in the US, its so hard(and expensive) for us to experience different cultures, since our country is so large. In Europe, you can travel 2 hours by car and experience 4 completely different cultures, languages, cuisines. It is the same to an extent in the US, but nowhere near as grand. So I feel like I'm behind the 8-ball on travel. There are so many great places to see, so many different types of food to eat, and currency to spend, that every trip has to be to a new place. The list is impossibly long, but it never hurts to look into the future and say "someday, I'll be there."
I can remember a distinct feeling for each place I've been. Sometimes its from a scent that won't leave me(Japan). Sometime its a taste(Rome), sometime its a temperature(LA, California). Sometime it's a vision(Hartford, CT), or sometime its just a moment that I keep remembering over and over(Vals, Switzerland). But every place has something. And these bits of my life that stay with me are what make it so great.
I love travel, and I think knowing the world, and always wanting to know more of the world and its people is the greatest gift this planet can give us.
posted by Kevin at 8:34 PM
1 Comments:
Great post. I wholeheartedly agree with it all and feel there is just not enough time to see it all. Someone last week asked me what my dream job would be and after a bit of thinking I said it would be someone like Rick Steves where he gets paid to travel. While its not saving lives, I feel like I could do that the rest of my life and be completely happy.
On a sidenote, while Europe or Asia is much more glamorous, it is amazing the sites that I often overlook in the US that I have not visited like Yosemite or Yellowstone or the Sierra Nevadas etc.
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