Why do we travel?
We spend so much time planning, paying towards and dreaming about the next trip that I sometimes wonder if we have ever stopped to ask why. If anyone grew up travelling they were and are exceptionally lucky, but in my younger years it became ‘normal’ to have at least one trip abroad per year. Is the time we spend travelling worthy of the minutes of our life if we take it for granted? I know for a fact, that money aside, I greatly appreciate travelling now because it is not a given anymore. Covid saw to that. Having different responsibilities as an adult will show you how very lucky you were to travel when your parents were in control. How my parents were able to plan and afford our big family holidays for 3 kids once a year is astonishing. If anything, travelling isn’t a given now nor was it 20/30 years ago, catering towards your children is both a beautiful and difficult affliction of being a parent. I have a friend that says she feels like she is depriving her child of something should she not take him abroad. It would stem from these actions the very thought that travel is an entitlement. So is that where the travel bug came from, the delusion that travel is a right?
Both of my parents have travelled extensively and spending summers with them abroad and in turn watching them travel to lands afar has left an imprint of a similar nature on me. Nowadays our travels are vastly different, but the idea and first learnings of travel is something that came from them. I would say that is something that most people would agree with. We become accustomed to a certain lifestyle because we grew up within it. And yet, on my mothers side, my grandparents did not leave the UK, they would travel the seasides of Great Britain and occasionally venture to the Isle of Wight. I never knew why, it is a shame, it would have been a wonderful little tidbit to include here, but it does beg the question that if they never travelled, how did my mother get the travel ‘bug’? Is it a case of wanting something you never had? Seeing a plane in the sky and wondering…
I sometimes wonder about people who don’t feel the urge to travel. Or do they not feel the need to explore? Is it fear? Or are they just happy? Are they simply happy with their lot? How fantastic it must feel not to run or need more. To feel joy and peace keeping your feet still. This theory is in relation to my grandparents, who if they wanted to could have found themselves in Europe without too many worries about money, but it goes without saying there are people out there who would love to travel and can’t due to shortage of funds. This doesn’t answer the question of not feeling the urge to travel, the urge is there, but the facilities aren’t.
So if travel is something to appease our inner explorer it would seem we have answered the very question posed at the top of this piece. But then, what if we don’t give a hoot about where we travel, we don’t plan, we just book and go. What then?
In my gap year, I spent weekends working my part time job and weekdays gathering up all the overtime I could to turn the money into plane tickets. I spent the better part of that year travelling. I left the country 7 or 8 times. That is what a gap year is for right? I went to Dublin, Spain, New York, to name a few and I’d love to say it was to explore and get a feel of the world. I realise now that with University looming and my choice to go confusing me, I felt the need to run away from the very impending reality of further education. I believe that year was spent running away from adulthood and travel being about escaping rather than exploring.
However now, with no reason to run, my need to travel comes from a very real place of being the best version of myself. When I am out in the world, following the map in my head and immersing myself in the pictures I have only till then seen in magazines, I feel a sense of absolute joy. I know I am the best ‘me’ when I am out there. Seeking, finding, experiencing. It would seem that selfishly, I yearn to travel for selfish reasons. It seems almost narcissistic to travel the world to fulfil my potential as a ‘nice’ human being. I am nice at home, that is without question. I’ll be the first to point out that I am a nice person almost as a default, I do not know how to act any other way, so it isn’t a case of travel making me nice in relation to others. Travel gives me such a confidence that makes me feel good just for me. I feel happy being me. It gives me the leeway to be nice to myself. Which at home is often not the case. In layman’s terms, I am kinder to myself when travelling. My mental health is of a gold standard. I guess in this case, when I travel now, I am running towards something. The version of myself I like.
So, there we have it an assorted and topsy turvy answer without any straightforward conclusion. Other than this.
For whatever reason we travel, we need to have respect for the opportunities and the freedom we have to do so. It is not a given and most certainly is not an entitlement. It is an absolute privilege.
Framework Travel 