Rant: Travel Ambivalence
Feel free to skip.
Something I’ve heard from a lot of people is that they fear being stuck in a rut. They feel like they should be going out to seek new experiences and new ideas every day, rather than being trapped in a daily routine that threatens to box them in and seal them off for good. When I was in school, I thought the same things too – I wanted every day to be different, varied, a wild exploration of the different things I can do.
I no longer feel this way.
What got me off the constant search for novelty and pain is air travel, specifically, tourist travel from a Third World country to the European Union or the United States. Seats on a transatlantic flight are expensive, running up to half the cost of the entire trip – going to Europe via the Middle East even more so. Applying for visas to these countries is a lot of work, and in the cause of the Schengen visa, must be repeated for every trip for tourism purposes. The flights themselves are long as well, taking up nearly a day to get where you’re going to go, even before factoring in timezones. Manila to New York, example, sends you back in time 12 hours while also taking most of a day[1].
It doesn’t end when you get there, either. Once there, we run from destination to destination, to make the best use of our costly flights and limited time. This means pre-reserving travel, planning out an itinerary, and booking the travel in advance, swelling your e-mail inbox with digital tickets and reservations that you need to remember. Doing one’s due diligence is thankfully easier than ever with Google Maps and extensive travel blogs – inviting us to do more and more of it.[2] The most common itineraries involve quickly hitting tourist traps, taking pictures, and moving on, purchasing souvenirs along the way.
As you can tell, I need a vacation from this vacation. Making sure you don’t leave anything lying around is an exercise in routine tedium – so is making sure you and your companions are awake and moving to schedule. You also have to be ready to deal with hiccups in the process, like dropped reservations, getting Internet and mobile in a foreign country, and generally re-learning how to live somewhere else. It’s practically paying to work!
By contrast, life at home is quite comfortable. I wake up at any time from 4:00 to 6:30 AM, every day – closer to the former when I need to make a long drive when I need to go to work, closer to the latter when I’m having a nice and lazy day in. After that, I either get to work or get on Substack, check my overnight chats, write a little (or stare at the page before deciding today’s not the day), and get to work. That lasts until about 8:00 to 10:00 PM at night, when I go to sleep. It’s quite a comfy routine, and one I’m used to.
Now this, this I like. It’s hard, but it’s peaceful, and a lot easier to work around. But I don’t learn anything from it, and aren’t pushed to my limits like when I’m traveling.
How ironic that the thing we consider a vacation, I consider a terror – and the drudgery people consider a terror, I consider a solace. This kind of frustrates me.
Travel, in theory, is something I should be incredibly interested in. It’s a mundane miracle that I can book a ticket on an aluminum-skinned flying machine that can take two to three hundred people across the entire world within 24 hours, in contrast to container ships take half to a full month[3], down from three months on sailing ships[4]. Lifting a large plane into the air with jet turbines powered by a specific grade of petroleum, the economics of flights and airports, the intricacies of currency exchange and ideas – there’s a lot here I could sink my teeth into, and a lot I’ve already learned from my travels. Foremost, the importance of packing minimally and lightly – the less you bring, the less you forget!
But to do all that to go around taking some pictures and see stuff all the other tourists also see, when I could be relaxing by reading or trying out a new hobby (usually from the comfort of my own home or usual haunts)? It’s a hard choice to make for a homebody like me – while other people will pretty quickly pick leisure travel.
I’m definitely the weird one here. If you’ve made it this far, let me know how you feel.
[1] https://onemileatatime.com/philippine-airlines-a350-new-york/
[2] Travel agencies make things more convenient, but cost more and involve long and hard schedules on the bus.
[3] https://arimotravels.com/how-long-does-it-take-a-cargo-ship-to-cross-the-pacific/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpacific_crossing
I really hear you Argo, I could have written this article verbatim. One time I was an international salesman, and did a million miles each year. Well, there was the excitement of, "will I make the sale this time?"
Everything you say; take a bunch of pictures (to prove you were there), buy a few souvenirs, complain about all the airports, take days to get over jet-lag, until moving into it again, get the most out of your ticket investment: is so right-on.
Actually, your little corner of your village is incredibly diverse, if you just go down some back alleys.
I did an ocean crossing by boat, (it was on the SS France, later sold to Norway). Then I did some travel by ship in the Mediterranean. I never did any cruises, which I think are only about over-eating rich foods.
That ocean crossing changed my life for good. What you find are "journey people". It is a whole different breed of people that ARE-HERE. In the airports of life you only find "destination people". They have to get somewhere, (in their mind). They are never fully present to meet with them. They are only loaded with all of their tickets and itineraries. When they get there, they are probably "missing in action" also. Only thinking about the return trip.
Tricia tells it like it is in her comment. Uproot your life and move there. Then you live the new experience, and not only imbibe in the tourist traps. I have always done exactly that, and am still doing it.
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Now there are 30 comments. I could "weigh-in" in some places. It boils down to a few observations.
I traveled in business, so I was fulfilling those obligations first, and the business paid.
I also saw what was there to see in those locations, as an add-on. I had enough free time.
So my work was not preventing anything that I later had to actualize.
Was that enough of life moving through the airports, and jet-lag? (BTW I learned to beat jet-lag.)
I valued freedom most, so I always traveled alone. No group coordination.
I knew the difference of passing through and moving in, since I changed my residence country twice.
I knew that I couldn't "be them", but neither could I be "old-me" any more.
What is my curiosity level? The world is very big and a lifetime is very short.
Because of the nature of "duality", every drive "out there" is an equal drive away from here/now.
Do I want to go-there; or do I really want to leave-here? What does boredom mean to me?
No; I like that other here/now. (But I am already in it every day.)
Where is the satisfaction level, since often the best part of the trip is arriving home.
(They say air travel is the most polluting.)
Fortunately my dogs and cats keep me in a stable place. I bless them for that.
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