Why Do We Travel?

Why do we travel?

The easier question to answer might be “why don’t we travel?” — and by “we,” I mean “they.” Travel, “they” argue, is frivolous and wasteful. Some base this belief on the fact that it’s possible to affordably meet one’s needs within his own city or town, while others cite the strain trains, planes and automobiles put on our already-stressed environment.

“We” have a different idea idea, “we” being the hundreds of millions of people around the globe who travel every year, including myself and, presumably, you. What follows is my attempt to succinctly sum up the main reasons we travel. As you read through this essay, I encourage you to ask yourself why you travel and leave any ideas you have as a comment.

We Travel to Leave

I’m not ashamed to admit that several of my trips have been born of me fleeing an unpleasant situation in my life, or “running away” as some people might prefer to call it.

I moved to China in November 2009 as much because I wanted to teach English and see pandas as I did to escape the hopeless U.S. economy and the intense depression I fell into after ten months out of a job. When I left the Middle Kingdom the following July, I was just as excited to travel the coast of Vietnam by bus, indulge in strange Singaporean food, and begin my first foray into the Middle East as I was to leave behind the roommate I made the mistake of sleeping with.

At the end of the day travel is always a departure, so it stands to reason that at least part of our desire to travel stems from an inherent need to leave unpleasant situations behind. Stress-response psychology backs this up. Whereas the “fight” response is defined by aggressive, combative behavior, the “flight” response allows us to flee, circumventing conflict altogether.

We Travel to Learn

The world is the most efficient, effective classroom. When you’re in an unfamiliar place, even a momentary, fleeting encounter or experience can alter the course of your life, paradigm shifts that can take months or years to happen at home, if they ever do. They often don’t.

Although my broadest motivation for travel has always been to gain a more complete picture of the world I live in, how other people live in it and the conflicts and issues that separate and unite us, specific moments during each of my trips have provided me with the most insight in these regards. Getting scammed at the New Delhi Railway Station illustrated that there are very much bad people in the world, while crossing Jordan’s border with Israel made me realize how no one is a third party when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Granted, learning on the road doesn’t have to be dramatic and scary. If you travel to Malaysia, for example, you can learn how to eat with your hand — and why you shouldn’t eat with the other one. Headed south of the border? School yourself in the origins of Malbec wine as you bike through Argentina’s wine country near Mendoza.

We Travel to Love

I like to write about sex. Whether I’m schooling my fellow gays in how to score on the road with Grindr app or giving the 411 on sleazy sex motels in Brazil, I’m a firm (no pun intended!) believer that investigating a region’s sexual identity is central to gaining an understanding of it.

I feel the same way about love. “But Robert,” you’re probably asking, “how can you give and receive love if you only see someone once or twice?” The answer is simple: When you know your time with someone is limited, you cast aside societal preconditions about the supposed time and commitment required in order to experience love.

Sometimes, this is stated. Lucas, a boy I met in Beijing, told me he loved me within the first few hours we met — I prefer to think he meant “like,” at least initially, and simply lacked the facility in English to articulate that. In other instances it’s implied, like when I sat on the back of Björn’s bike as he rode me around Amsterdam last October. I’ve even had extremely short-term relationships when I travel, such as with Matias in Santiago, Chile, who was my boyfriend for less than a week.

The capacity for love you gain while traveling isn’t just romantic either. Whether it’s the families I now feel I have in Switzerland and Jordan or incredible individual friends like Dan in Australia, Assaf in Israel or Valmir in Brazil, my life has now been directly impacted by literally hundreds of people all over the world — and, hopefully, I have also impacted theirs.

We Travel Because We Must

Some people argue we have no choice in the matter of whether or not we travel. My good friend Megan, a wildlife biologist and one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, explained it to me simply. ”At the beginning of human civilization,” she said, “some of us were hunter-gatherers and some of us preferred to til our own fields.”

Initially, she explained, something like 90 per cent of people were hunter-gatherers, with 10 per cent left to found the modern agricultural movement. Although the majority of today’s human population neither hunts, gathers, nor farms, there nonetheless exists a genetic distinction between people who descended from hunter-gatherers and those who descended from farmers. Interestingly, the percentages have flipped — only about 10 per cent of today’s population has so-called “hunter-gatherer DNA.”

If this hypothesis holds true, then I know for a fact I am among the remaining hunter-gatherers. As my neighborhood friends and even my siblings passed their summers away in front of a blaring TV, I was biking through the neighborhood voraciously in search of butterflies. I spent my early teenage years traveling (as much as I could) around the country in search of the fastest, tallest roller coasters, a quest that brought me to follow the tours of singer Tori Amos between 2002-2007.

I’ve traveled to leave; I’ve traveled to learn; and I’ve traveled to love. I travel as much because I want to as because I must, because travel teaches me how to live and life moves me to travel. I would like to think the same basic truths exist for all of us. I would love to hear what you all have to say about this topic!

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Tags: Culture, global citizen, global culture, global travel, inspiration, international culture, international travel, reasons for traveling, reasons to travel, running away, Travel, travel the world, travel to escape, travel to learn, travel to leave, travel to love, Traveling, why do we travel?, why should we travel?, why travel, world travel