We Travel Not to Escape Life

I don’t know who exactly said this, but I found this quote to be really interesting. It has to do with traveling, one of the many things I want to do one day because I think it would be a lot of fun and because there are so many places I haven’t been that I want to see.

What I find interesting about the quote is that it talks about reasons people travel. As if some people travel to escape their boring, mundane lives. But no, most people who travel don’t travel for this reason. Most people already have in mind a place they want to one day see. It’s either a place they are connected to through their lineage or because it’s somewhere beautiful that they hope they get the opportunity to see.

In other words, people travel not to escape life, but to embrace the lives they are already living. People are curious about the world around them and want to go to places they haven’t yet explored.

Not to say that people don’t travel to escape life at all. Some people study abroad or go to another country for a year because they aren’t sure what they want to do with their lives. They hope that by taking a vacation from their current lives they’ll be able to find the answer in another location. To finally put meaning back into their ordinary life and discover what they knew all along.

And while going to another country to take time off from your current life can be seen as trying to escape life, it isn’t. By going to another country, people are reaching out of their comfort zones and taking their lives down a path of the unknown.

Life is a fickle thing. It doesn’t play fair and often leads you down paths you didn’t know you could take. Traveling does the same thing. It offers you the opportunity to go to places you didn’t know you’d get the chance to visit. But at the same time, leads your life in a direction you didn’t know you could go.

Traveling isn’t a way of escaping life but of living it. Traveling allows you to experience the world through a set of new eyes. When you find yourself in a new place, somewhere you aren’t familiar with, you feel lost. Disconnected, confused even. So you explore, try to find your way around and figure out where your supposed to go. But once you’ve been there for a while, you’re able to find your way around without feeling lost and confused.

Life is the same way. As a child, everything seems shiny and brand new. You test the waters by picking up objects you aren’t familiar with and exploring the environment you find yourself in. Then as you get older, you become more and more familiar with everything around you. You no longer have to experiment and understand what’s going on because you already understand what those objects that you were once unfamiliar with are and understand the place you currently live.

That’s why you travel. To explore someplace new, to find life as thrilling and exciting as you used to when you were a child. To look at the world through a new pair of eyes and understand that life constantly changes.

As someone who hasn’t traveled often, I want to one day go to another country. If I ever get the chance, I want to see more of the world as much as I can. I want to go somewhere unfamiliar and find wonder and joy in the life I’m living. I want to travel and experience life once again through another pair of eyes that sees the beauty of everything around me. To create memories and experience life in its purest form.

So no we don’t travel to escape life. We travel to embrace the lives we currently live and learn to love life again.