Why do we travel?

I love traveling and visiting a lot of places has been one of my desires since I was very young.

Traveling is more about the journey, than about the destination

I know this is almost a cliche, but I truly believe this is something that a traveler should have as a mindset. Because there are usually 2 types of people that are on a road: the ones that go in vacation to rest and the ones that travel. Relaxation can be achieved at home or in a resort: the purpose is to not have chores to do, the food to be delivered by others and any other needs that a specific person has in order to disconnect. But you can lay all day long in your garden or in a park just reading or spend time in front of a TV wherever, even at home.

Traveling on the other side has another way to make you get disconnected: by enjoying the novelty. And this novelty may come from many areas:

• there are landscapes that you can admire, so you might stop the car every 10 miles and breath the nature around you;
• new people to meet, different culture, different language if the case, it means spending time in a very different way that you are used to;
• different food and this goes from getting used to another taste to trying all kind of new dishes;
• history to find out about;
• lifestyle of the locals:
• cities that are alive in a different manner.

But all these are a sort of challenge, different from the one that you might have in your every day life at job or home, but still a challenge.

Always ask the WHY

Why do we go away from home? The other days a friend told me that he went with his wife and some friends in a vacation, by car and they were moving from one city to another every 2 days; he did not enjoy because it was tiring and his wife has slept almost all the way. Understanding our needs and why we go on vacation is very important. I believe he needed to rest, not to travel.

Photos for social media are not enough
Do you really need everyone to know what you do or what you eat?

If you document a vacation because you love to, because you want to help others find useful information as you got from the internet about the place you are visiting, because you want to make your joy contagious, that is awesome. Make tones of photos and videos, write articles and upload everywhere. If none of those is your purpose, you should think twice why you are spending time on photos upload during your travel. Maybe you have personal (confidence) issues and your vacation from Instagram will not solve them, but yes, it will cover them for a while.

Traveling does not mean going far away
Traveling can be an awesome place that is 100 miles far away from you; or maybe just 10. Traveling means spending time in another way that you use to, with people you enjoy, the way you enjoy. Traveling sometimes means being on the road 7 to 10 hours a day, chatting with a partner, admiring landscapes and having a lot of stops in places people usually do not hear about. It can last a month or just one day and the energy level can still go up.

Do the things for yourself
Traveling can be an absolutely good thing you can do for your personal and spiritual evolution. But you have to really understand your needs; more than that, one year traveling is good, the next one there can be other activities more suitable to the person you are that next year. Listen to your body and soul and you will find out exactly what you need. Travel is not an universal solution, but a specific one.

photo source: pixabay.com