Why We Travel

1. Why do you travel?  Do your reasons align with Iyer’s essay? Please explain.

           

            We travel to believe, to find a purpose, to find that childhood spark that remains in our eyes years after our own society says it should have already been gone. We travel to discover to gain knowledge of ourselves, of the world and perhaps gain knowledge of perplex ideas that had never even once accrued to us during our everyday lives. Most travelers still have the mindset of pilgrims and modern day missionaries, but now less oriented to spreading ideas to other people and more to spreading others ideas to themselves. Lyer’s ideas are powerful and thoughtful, each with a heartening complexity that is rarely considered by most travels outright but always emotionally considered in the back of there minds. He understands without a doubt the addiction of ones departure of there own reality for another and the pure boundlessness of that world that was practically dreamt to life.

2. Iyer says, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new places, but in seeing with new eyes.”  What does this mean?  How might this relate to you?

            Lyer try’s to explain the true involvedness of travel, and its vitally fundamental aspect. To discover and really harness either a world or concept one must truly understand it. He is trying to portray the idea of opening ones mind to a new other worldly extent. To be, if only for an instant, a new person with new experiences and new insightive thoughts. To discover, is to ascertain change in yourself or the world around you, not only seeing the differences. This opened-mind-ness that all travelers must have to truly be a traveler is an aspiration for me and for many who truly want to grasp the world in their hands.

3. Iyer says, “What gives value to travel is fear.”  What does this mean?  How might this relate to our journey?

            There is and always have been a fine line between things like love and hate, cowardice and bravery. Without one, there could be no other. Without truly experiencing each one to the fullest, you can never know either.  We travel to a new place to escape from our reality, not to relive our regular lives. This escape and this endless abyss of possibilities, good and bad alike, is a frightening thought to say the least. Though for any value to arise from travel one must fling them selves back to worlds as ancient as Jerusalem herself, and forward to futures new as a baby’s first breath. We must, to experience the true complexities of travel know the daunting realizations that our world is clearly veiled for us, then with determination, we can truly gain knowledge and genuine empathy. We must first fear the cliff we are about to foolishly jump off and then, and only then, putting all our faith forward decided to jump.

4. Iyer talks about a traveler being a human “carrier pigeon”, transporting ideas and culture from one society to another.  Do you believe that travelers have a responsibility to share their knowledge and experience with all they visit and those they return to?

            To be a traveler you have already taken upon yourself the weight of all your knowledge and have opened your mind to receive the true intricacies of the newly discovered understanding. This exponentially increased affinity gives travelers all the more reason to become modern day missionaries. Not exactly in the spread of religion but in the spread of ideas. Travelers have a moral responsibility to enthuse others of this massively wondrous world. Honestly I would personally really like to know if someone went through a rabbit whole and back. I would love to ask countless questions about the mad hatter and the funny Always-late-to-a-party bunny. Lyer said that traveling to new places is as much as it is traveling through an imagined world. We all, as members of mankind, adores stories, without them where would we be? We would have no fairytales or Disney movies, not even a Bible or Bhagavat. Albert Einstein said "If you want your children to be smart, read them fairy tales; if you want them to be really smart, read them more fairy tales."  If a traveler held back what he or she experienced they hold back a story that will never be lived if it’s never told. It will die as the traveler does and the greatness of the newly opened mind and marvelous ideas will forever be lost. Thank goodness Tuesdays With Morrie was there to teach me that.

5. “Travel, then, is a voyage into that famously subjective zone, the imagination, and what the traveler brings back is—and has to be—an ineffable (def: deep) compound of himself and the place, what’s really there and what’s only in him.”  As your teachers, this is our favorite quote.  Please find your favorite quote and explain why you chose it.

“And even as the world seems to grow more exhausted, our travels do not, and some of the finest travel books in recent years have been those that undertake a parallel journey, matching the physical steps of a pilgrimage with the metaphysical steps of a questioning.”


I love this quote simply because it describes my personal young restlessness and that I so dearly wish to retain throughout the years. I hope not only to understand the harsh reality that is so foreign to me but also to discover how impossibly whimsical the world is. How boundaries that seem always present, just for an instant can be broken.  Sometimes it seems as if all I feel is gravity and now, truly thinking about it I wonder why. My mind constantly feels like its burning from the accumulative amount of questions that none have an answer to, and perhaps if I travel and discover the world with an open mind that those questions can be answered in a truly honest way. That journey is more than just appealing, every step a break from the norm, every word from another stranger will be new and electrifying and every food will have a new twang and a new spice to tickle my tongue. I don’t just want to see on this particular adventure I want to feel, its impact, it majesty and wonder.