The acts of leaving and returning on a journey often serve as convenient bookends to our travels in our minds but on closer inspection largely come to define our traveling experiences.
I love when writers reframe something so common we take it for granted. Justin S. Bailey’s On Leaving and Returning reframes travel not as a string of exotic highlights but as a rhythm of thresholds—packing, airports, hotel checkouts, and the quiet rituals of departure and return. Through a philosophical and anthropological lens, he suggests that what we call “travel” is really a continuous state of motion, dissolving the line between adventure and everyday life. Travel, like existence itself, is process, not punctuation—a mindset rather than a map.
There’s something beautifully humbling in that idea: seeing travel not as escape but as a mirror of how we live every day—always between thresholds, always becoming. Leaving and returning aren’t opposites; they’re the same breath, drawn in and released across continents or across the street. ✈️🌍
I enjoyed listening to this a second time. My husband and I have lists we go down every time we get ready to travel so that we try not to forget anything while packing. Perhaps for us the packing and checking off items on the list is the beginning of our going away.
I love when writers reframe something so common we take it for granted. Justin S. Bailey’s On Leaving and Returning reframes travel not as a string of exotic highlights but as a rhythm of thresholds—packing, airports, hotel checkouts, and the quiet rituals of departure and return. Through a philosophical and anthropological lens, he suggests that what we call “travel” is really a continuous state of motion, dissolving the line between adventure and everyday life. Travel, like existence itself, is process, not punctuation—a mindset rather than a map.
There’s something beautifully humbling in that idea: seeing travel not as escape but as a mirror of how we live every day—always between thresholds, always becoming. Leaving and returning aren’t opposites; they’re the same breath, drawn in and released across continents or across the street. ✈️🌍
Thank you kindly Dave! Wonderful summary and additional thoughts on this piece. Thank you for reading and sharing. Cheers and happy travels!
I enjoyed listening to this a second time. My husband and I have lists we go down every time we get ready to travel so that we try not to forget anything while packing. Perhaps for us the packing and checking off items on the list is the beginning of our going away.