What drives the desire to travel?

[My_Brain_Gets_Itchy]

I've also said before that I think it's good for finding out who you are without the normal boundaries others place on you. It's not just geography, either. If someone always travels as the "scientist" or "cyclist" or "partner/spouse/parent/child" or whatever, they take along a pre-conceived notion of themselves. Traveling without any identity can help a person see who and what they really are. For that reason, I also think it's good to keep traveling. People change, and as we get older we should keep checking in to make sure we our being true to our [current] selves.

Yes, yes! I like this sentence a lot..

[jacob]

@Ego

WRT to your point 2, that's exactly what I mean. Despite you and I being from two different countries, an ocean apart, we can relate to health care and W-2s because we're educated and middle class, and because very similar middle-class worries exist in all developed countries. In other words, going from Denmark via Switzerland to the US has not moved my perceptions much. The middle-class white collar culture is one humongous homogeneous culture.

I can leave this culture by moving, just a few miles, into a low-rent blue collar neighborhood wherein nobody knows exactly what a W-2 is (but they know all about the EIC) and Obamacare is considered bad because it has the name Obama in it. It's much harder for me to relate (carry on a productive conversation) to them than it is for me to relate to you.

So I distinguish two different kinds of travel.
1) Leaving your country.
2) Leaving your culture.
It's possible to leave both culture and country at the same time. It's also possible to do neither or do one or the other. My point and original question was to the effect that a lot of travel seems to be about just leaving one's country but not so much one's culture. And that leaving one's culture is quite easy and usually only requires a short journey on public transportation... but that few have the guts to do that.

[jacob]

WRT to experiences ...

When people travel to other countries they mostly get the experience of visiting the country, not in living there.

They don't get to make a living there.
They don't pay taxes.
They don't learn to battle the bureaucracy.
They don't stay long enough to get the humour or cultural references.
They don't get to go to the hospital.
They don't get to find a mechanic.
They don't get to build a cob house.

Visiting and living are very different experiences. This is perhaps the crux of my "complaint". By visiting a lot, isn't all you're getting a lot of experience in "visiting"? I mean, I'm quite experienced in visiting. I've visited 14 countries and lived (in the above sense) in 3 of them. For me, living went much deeper on the experience level than visiting ... but doing something out-of-culture went deeper still despite not change my location geographically.

[champ0608]

Traveling and visiting other countries scratches a few itches for me (which I readily admit could be scratched by other, less expensive means, but I don't mind the cost nor what the cost represents in terms of life energy as I see it as a worthy trade.)

I'm a major lover of History. Seeing historic places in person touches me in a way I can't articulate. I won't even try. Any historian who has stood on the beaches of Normandy, or been to Pompeii, or any number of things between can surely understand. It has something to do with better understanding the human condition and perhaps even reasoning with mortality. For me, seeing and sometimes touching these things in person is an experience that is worth the cost.

I have other reasons, but all of them are more trivial as none of them touch me deep down inside. But, I'm ok with that as well. We live in a small world, but we only have so much time. I'm compelled to see what's here while I can.

[jacob]

@jennypenny -

I travel as me. "Whereever I go, there I am." Unless I'm completely self-deluded, I don't think I've ever had any identity/integrity issues. I'm quite sure of who I am and what I want. The whole ERE/retirement path speaks to that---I'm not really very constrained by boundaries that other people put on me. I also think that in that regard, I'm somewhat of an outlier. In short, traveling is not a way for me to shed my assumed identity and start afresh to see who I really am.

Maybe all this confusion comes about because everybody sees travel differently.

I agree with JohnnyH in the sense that traveling (as I see it's being done) is just buying a $500 plane ticket. There's very little uncontrolled about that. As long as you have money, know a few words and gestures, you can pretty much cover most of the civilized parts of the globe. I've done this a lot. Show up at a train station or airport, buy a ticket to the nearest large destination. Get on train/plane. If diverted, go buy a new ticket. If no more fligts/trains, find a bench and sit on it for five hours until they start running again. Upon arriving, wander around outside station until a bus stop/taxi is located. Give/ask for directions to hotel/motel. Upon arriving, get out and walk in the direction of population until foodmarket is located. Buy food. Walk back. I've done this dozens of times. It may look uncontrolled, but naah... easy-peasy.

Granted, if you've never done it before, it's scary/tricky.

Similarly, I find riding a bike across the US daunting. However, in theory it's as simple as riding a bike to the next campsite or learning where and where not to put up a tent if not campsite is in sight. After learned this, it's just a matter of repeating this one step many times. Traveling-by-ticket is the same. Once you learn how to buy a ticket and get on various kinds of transportation and find temporary housing and food sources. Travel is trivial.

For testing limits in uncontrolled immeasureable ways, I prefer heavy weather sailing, fighting, public speaking, ... perhaps travelling to the uncivilized parts of the world, like south of the Loop.

[Ego]

In other words, going from Denmark via Switzerland to the US has not moved my perceptions much.

Is it possible that your outsider/insider view provided you a perspective on Plato's cave that you would not have had if you were to have stayed in Denmark and socialized with immigrants?

And that leaving one's culture is quite easy and usually only requires a short journey on public transportation... but that few have the guts to do that.

That's true. I agree it is possible. By managing this senior complex I've been able to take a journey thirty years into the future. It has been incredibly enlightening. I live here and work here so being engulfed in the culture 24/7 has been important.

WRT to experiences ...

When people travel to other countries they mostly get the experience of visiting the country, not in living there.

They don't get to make a living there.
They don't pay taxes.
They don't learn to battle the bureaucracy.
They don't stay long enough to get the humour or cultural references.
They don't get to go to the hospital.
They don't get to find a mechanic.
They don't get to build a cob house.

Visiting and living are very different experiences. This is perhaps the crux of my "complaint".

Again I agree, living somewhere provides deeper opportunities for adaptation than simply traveling there. This is one of the reasons I do unusual things when traveling. Unusual activities create unusual situations to which I must adapt.

Just for fun we decided to get our motorcycle licenses in South Africa. My wife (who is way smarter than me) studied for hours but failed the written test. I have to admit, I came close to failing as well. We learned later that the apartheid government had created incredibly complex and convoluted permit tests just prior to relinquishing power in hopes of making high hurdles for the newly free black South Africans to getting driver's licenses. Hard lesson learned. There is no better way to learn than by doing.

The skills to adapt, to coerce, to fix, and to solve problems comes out of situational necessity. Sometimes we have to contrive those situations. For some, boxing at an inner city gym will do that. For others, teaching at an inner city school will accomplish it. For me, travel is the best way to produce the optimal results.

And I'll reiterate.... microbes!!!!! Fecal transplants are on the horizon. Until then, travel is the only way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEMnRC22oOs

[jennypenny]

I can leave this culture by moving, just a few miles, into a low-rent blue collar neighborhood wherein nobody knows exactly what a W-2 is (but they know all about the EIC) and Obamacare is considered bad because it has the name Obama in it. It's much harder for me to relate (carry on a productive conversation) to them than it is for me to relate to you.

That's not really leaving your culture, is it? Being with people who disagree about institutionalized healthcare systems isn't the same as traveling to places to be with people who routinely get their medical care from the elder women in the community.

I'll grant you that the identity issue might just be a personal issue, but I would still argue that it's more about what you learn about you than what you learn about them anyway.

And I'll reiterate.... microbes!!!!! Fecal transplants are on the horizon. Until then, travel is the only way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEMnRC22oOs

I'm afraid to click on the link to that video

[Ego]

And I'll reiterate.... microbes!!!!! Fecal transplants are on the horizon. Until then, travel is the only way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEMnRC22oOs

I'm afraid to click on the link to that video

Hey, it is perfectly legitimate amateur pseudo-science. I believe it. Kinda.

[My_Brain_Gets_Itchy]

@jennypenny -

I travel as me. "Whereever I go, there I am." Unless I'm completely self-deluded, I don't think I've ever had any identity/integrity issues. I'm quite sure of who I am and what I want. The whole ERE/retirement path speaks to that---I'm not really very constrained by boundaries that other people put on me. I also think that in that regard, I'm somewhat of an outlier. In short, traveling is not a way for me to shed my assumed identity and start afresh to see who I really am.

@jacob:
Are you saying that your conscious mind knows exactly how your unconscious works?

Or how you would react if you got quite ill in a foreign country with suspect healthcare and no one to rely on?

Or being completely lost spatiallly in a city where everyone speaks a foreign language?

Just some examples.

[jacob]

@jennypenny - Well, how many travellers go to places where health care comes from the old townswoman? I think that would be educational. However, I think most go to places where health care comes from doctors, clinics, and hospitals. You'd have to go pretty far out to find the former.

@MBGI -

I would say that my conscious mind is elaborately and coherently structured and that I'm quite aware if I'm violating that structure. I know what I know. I know what I don't know. I know why I'm doing something. I know why I'm not doing something. It's pretty hard for my subconsciousness or my emotions to sneak anything past that. Not that I don't act on them, but I would be quite aware that I am.

It is pretty hard to get to a place where there's absolutely nobody to rely on or where you're completely lost.

When I was living in Switzerland, I caught the worst case of the flu I ever had. Five days in bed with fever and muscle pains. I was also out of food, so I had to walk out and get some. Almost passed out from walking the quarter mile. I guess that might not qualify as quite ill. I never thought I'd die from it.

Lost spatially in a place where everybody speaks a foreign language? The Tokyo Subway! It takes some practice not looking lost [while trying to figure out where to go] to avoid having people try to help you. Even so, if people don't speak English and you can't read the signs, gesturing, and drawing stuff on a piece of paper works quite well. [Speaking louder doesn't though ] ... One train trip through Europe was more fun: It starts out with the local train being delayed thus missing my connecting train to the high speed train. Since the HS train is time locked (cheap ticket) I have to find a taxi to the nearest city 20km away to beat the train within 30 mins. Managed to do so. Get on the HS train. Due to delays, the route is cut short. Out on the train station in Hamburg. In my best school German I get my ticket rerouted onto a first class ticket and a bigger detour. Now standing at 1030pm at a station in Podunk Germany waiting for the last train. It eventually gets there after also being delayed for an hour. No worry though. I had cash on me. Cash solves nearly all travel problems.

I guess you could say that I could only have had those experiences because I was travelling. Here, however, is another experience I had just an hour away from home ...

Say, how would you react if you're 5 miles from shore on a 30' sailboat in 14 foot waves (waves the size of a semi-truck). The rudder just snapped and fell to the bottom, the mainsail is blown out, and the boat is now on its side with the mast almost touching the water. Sitting on the rail you got dipped to the waist. The wind is gusting to 30 knots. Your survival time in the water, should you lose your grip on the boat (without sail and rudder, they can no longer navigate), is about 30-40 minutes. There are no other boats in sight.

It seems that there's not really any time to think about fear. Overall it was a pretty calm non-panicky situation.

[My_Brain_Gets_Itchy]

@jacob:

I hope you don't mind but I just wanted to expand on the topic of identity.

If this is a derail or too off topic, please feel free to move it.

I believe identity will always be dynamic, always be in flux. Transition and change in life are constant, and identity changes with it.

The more I learn, the less I know. The more education I get, the more naive I realize I am, especially if this education is such that it does not reconfirm my previous biases but challenges them.

My place in this world shrinks with the input of knowledge and passage of time, and my perspectives change.

Once when I was a child, I thought the world revolved around me. I see more now my speckofdustness. Once as a teenager I thought I was invincible, the world was my oyster. Having my father pass, and a very good friend pass, I saw death up close, and have a completely different understanding of mortality now. My identity changes.

The person I am today and how I see myself is much different than how I saw myself in the past, and what I will be in the future.

I suspect once the inevitability of my body aging even more, and takes full effect, my reality, and my identity will change once again.

[My_Brain_Gets_Itchy]

@jacob: Just to address your reply to my reply, I do see the points you are making about travel. And I fully appreciate travel is not your thing and you derive similar satisfactions in cheaper and more local forms. I also think your criticisms about certain travellers are entirely valid (ie. people who take selfies in front of every artifact they come across for example piss me off!). I recall in a previous thread you mentioned your travel was mostly work related in westernized hotels and on the beaten path. And for me, yes I would not like that type of travel either.

However, I think travel comes in many flavours, and certain flavours can stimulate different travellers in different ways. People have different taste buds.

I love sushi for example. I think its healthy for me (healthy fat and protein), but if one is grossed out by it, and then tries to point to an avacado say it has the same nutritional consistency, I can only reply by saying but I like eating sushi!

[m741]

I enjoy travel for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost - the world is a big place, and I'm in a lucky position where I have the ability to see some part of it (an ability 99.9% of people in history never had). To live in this world and have that ability, and not take advantage of it... to me, that's like buying a video game with 500 different levels and just repeatedly playing the same one. Or one of these RPG or open world games... like playing Minecraft and just staying in the forest (and not desert, rainforest, underground, etc). Or having a library and only ever reading the same book.

Of course there are a lot of dimensions of experience and maybe travel is like pulling one book off of each bookcase, and learning stuff in one place is like reading a complete bookcase. Myself, I like a compromise, reading a shelf of books and moving on.

There's also a challenge aspect. Now travel can be very easy (living in a hotel, flying first class, taking guided tours), or it can be challenging (hiking/hitchhiking, couchsurfing, making your own way around). Admittedly even challenging travel can be pretty comfortable. I like traveling with as little as possible, a small 25L backpack. It's a chance to embrace minimalism, briefly. The people saying travel is easy... what about hiking the Appalachian Trail? What about biking from Cape Town to Egypt? Or sailing around the world? These all require a certain psychological endurance that's really impossible to exercise at home.

Finally I enjoy seeing historical and cultural sights. It's one thing to read about them, but experiencing them in person - smelling them, hearing them, being surrounded by them. Knowing that where you stood, someone had made history 100, 500, 1000 years ago. That means something to me. I'm curious what these sights are like. I remember seeing the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and it was totally different than I expected (the gate was the same, but the *place* was different). I like knowing how a city is organized, and it's very difficult to get that from a map. Reykjavik and Amsterdam look similar on maps (except the canal), but are completely different cities. Likewise NYC and San Francisco.

I suspect that trying to convince someone of the value of travel is about the same as trying to convince someone of the value of making your own tools. "I could just buy them..." yeah, but it's not the same.

[Ego]

I believe identity will always be dynamic, always be in flux. Transition and change in life are constant, and identity changes with it....

The person I am today and how I see myself is much different than how I saw myself in the past, and what I will be in the future.

I suspect once the inevitability of my body aging even more, and takes full effect, my reality, and my identity will change once again.

MBGI, beautiful post!

I think travel might help to fast-forward this process. It helps to induce and accelerate these changes.

Also, if you believe that we are the result of all the prior experiences we had + genetics, then it makes sense to have as many different experiences as possible. Variety induces growth.

[Dragline]

Going back to the original question, I think the reason 20-somethings like to travel basically comes down to a combination of curiosity, social proof (all my friends are doing it) and elder pressure from the more highly educated ("Go west, young man!" - or take a "European tour").

Those pressures tend to dissipate or reverse in one's thirties. If you've done some traveling, most people become less curious or find out they actually don't like the process, their friends aren't doing it as much anymore except for work, and their elders are telling them they ought to settle down.

I agree we are talking about visiting in most cases and not living. Although i have noticed that a much higher percentage of young Americans travel outside the US than did when I was growing up in the 70s. Much of this is now built into "educational" experiences (or at least marketed that way). And there are more places one can go legally and easily.

[riparian]

Jacob, I think it's a mistake to assume that everyone travels in the way you have.

I've never left North America. When I've travelled I've lived out of a vehicle or backpack for years at a time. I have experiences like this:
http://www.hobostripper.com/when-the-stripping-sucked/
And this:
http://www.hobostripper.com/southern-stripping/

Where I LIVE me and my friends and an old indigenous woman are the health care and people hate Obama and get riled up about the government taking our guns.

[jacob]

It's not easy when we're all have different conceptions of what "travel" is.

Let me try again. In its most abstract sense travel is going from A to B.

My distinction lies in asking exactly _what_ is going?
Is it your physical location?
Is it your understanding of yourself? Of the world? Of how to do things in the world?

Judging by what the average person (not most of you guys) says about travel, it's mostly about changing their physical location, briefly, and then doing the same things they usually do. This means they travel in space but not so much in insight, understanding, or growth.

Sure, first time you change your physical location, you need to master "transport" (whether that's pedaling or buying tickets). Your understanding of how to do things in the world, specifically relocate yourself grows, coincidentally with the relocation. However, if you do it the a second time, I don't see any increasing in understanding. The only aspect that grows by repetition is your understanding of your endurance and persistence. For me personally, knowing how to click a few times on expedia, I could be in London next week. Would I develop as a person from this? No, I don't see how because I already know how to do this. Despite never having been in London I don't think a one month stay there could teach me more about the British than talking to a British friend over here.

Conversely, if I had to row a boat across the Atlantic, it would again be a relocation in space but more the more important journey would be the inner almost spiritual journey of being on a little boat for weeks and the physical preparation.

However, I don't need to go across the Atlantic to actually have such experiences. The physical relocation is not a necessary part of the other parts of the journey.

My main hypothesis for the difference in perception is simply that I like to classify experiences into abstractions. With enough sample points, I get it. I don't need to see more to understand more. In other words, repeating the same kind of travel to ten different countries doesn't bring me more insight or understanding than going to the first few of them.

This is what I mean when I say that standard-travel---"visiting"---quickly became pretty mundane to me. It's no longer a journey to me. I don't develop new abstractions from "visiting" places as long as those places look the same. And they seem to because humans are sufficiently similar than a 1 year study won't reveal the differences.

Conversely, a brain that picks up details instead of abstractions will be thrilled by seeing new details in different places.

Well, at least that's my best explanation for the difference of opinion.

So I enjoy journeys in the sense of trying new things. If I have to relocate in order to do this I consider it a necessary hassle. Conversely, I don't see the point of traveling to do the same things I already do. Yet that is what I observe most travelers do. Why do they do that?

[Freedom_2018]

"My main hypothesis for the difference in perception is simply that I like to classify experiences into abstractions. With enough sample points, I get it."

Would you say the same about sex also? Something to think about.

[jacob]

@Freedom_2018 - To an extent yes. Standard travel ("visiting") seems to analogous to having one night stands with as many partners as possible or with people living as far away as possible (the exotic factor). This seems less satisfying than a deep relationship with a local. In short, I'd conclude that one-night stands are approximately similar in the abstract---ultimately unsatisfying---and not pursue them further.

[Freedom_2018]

@Jacob: I was referring to sex in the context of a meaningful relationship. Even there it could be construed over time to be a repetitive act and after enough "samples" one could draw up an abstraction and incremental samples would not deliver additional richness to the abstraction. Maybe that is why many relationships seem to have a shorter shelf life...running out of abstractions;-)

Sex and travel (also say food) to me are to be enjoyed at both levels..abstractions and details. Like a Van Gogh painting that allows one to look beyond just the lumps of paint dabbed on the canvas. What one sees in the paintings change with ones mood and vice versa. Some experiences are to be enjoyed on the abstract as well as detail level. I think defaulting to one primary way of viewing experiences (the S/N divide in MBTI) is ultimately a limited view.

As fas as "digital nomads" making love to their laptops and FaceBook updates from a beach in Thailand..that kind of travel often is no more than another variant of consumerism. I think the best travel experiences are intensely private and won't be found on a blog or status update. The Internet does have its many uses but spending a lot of time taking in the experiences of other peoples lives through their blogs (the irony is not lost on me as I am typing this is a great way to not have a life of ones own.

I think the best way to get to your answer of why do travelers do things that make no sense to you would be to ask one of them directly and with empathy but without a pre-conceived notion or judgment. Sometimes what makes no sense to us makes sense when in another's shoes.