My partner and I find that if we focus on living as those where we are traveling do, we find a sense of place rather than a sense of restlessness. We aren’t focused on the things to see as much as on how we soak in the culture. In return, we truly experience a depth that makes up for an endless search.
I think it helps when you’re able to disconnect. On my last 6 day rafting trip with no signal it felt like 2 weeks instead of 1. I left feeling quite restored. Of course, then I missed it.
I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but I've been traveling full time for seven years now and I'm rarely satisfied with the amount of time I get to spend somewhere. Perhaps bc that's I have to spend time working on our own newsletter. But I suspect it has more to do with knowing the world is a huge fascinating place and that I'll never get to see it all.
I think your insight is a great data point to have and an important one! It affirms what I already suspected--that restlessness and the desire to explore our world might just be a permanent trait we have. It's very human because we come to realize the world is a vast place and we know our time on the planet is ultimately limited. In maybe an odd way, that makes me feel better knowing that this isn't a problem that I'm going to necessarily resolve but can perhaps learn to somehow embrace and adapt to. Thanks for sharing that Michael! Cheers!
I think I embrace simply because it's part of what makes me me -- and I like the traveling version of me. I think it also helps me live a bit more in the moment, knowing that the time I have in each place is fleeting, so best appreciate it while I can.
I think what you are trying to medicate through travel - and i do believe travel is a drug the way so many approach it - is something that cannot be treated through travel. And this is why you want more. Because travel is not the cure to what ails you, nor the cure to what ails the rest of the gazillions who put "travel!" as number one on their lists. The ailment being a deep fundamental dissatisfaction with the nature of their lives, and quite possibly with the place they have chosen to live. Justifiably so, in many of our modern examples. What you are seeking in travel is a different life in a different place, but you aren't willing to take the risks to make it permanent. Beyond that, you haven't learned to be content in-place, which has become probably one the rarest skillsets today. I'm not impressed with travellers, the legions and legions of them out there, i think they are livng shallow lives. I'm impressed with the really happy people whom then tell you, "I have never been out of this valley in my life." If you can find such a person anymore, in this age of epidemic dissatisfaction.
Interesting and provocative thoughts. I'd disagree with some of it though, namely the idea that people are necessarily dissatisfied with their lives or have some kind of inherent defect. Personally and presently, I've never been more satisfied with my life. I'm surrounded by family in a town bustling with plenty of wonderful things to do. I'm becoming more involved in my community. I run nearly every day and practice Jiu Jitsu. Every evening I'm sitting down to read a book with a glass of wine once I put my child down to sleep. And I typically get to travel about four times a year. Relatively speaking, my life is great and feel like I'm in the best shape of my life and yet I still want to keep seeing more of the world. Not sure how that makes someone shallow, although I'd agree with you that there are plenty of shallow travelers out there.
But things aren't either-or.
To me, most things in life are about tradeoffs and it takes awhile for someone, especially when they are younger, to find their place in life. Traveling to different places presents our minds with alternatives of what our lives could be. Backpacking the Appalachian Trail radically shifted my perspective in this regard. Often travel can also remind us that the place we live is pretty damn good after all and might make us appreciate our lives and culture at home more. I don't see anything wrong with not being 100% content with everything and I'd question the premise that there are some of us that are perfectly content all the time in-place. I don't think the mind works that way. People can be very skilled at burying their suffering all the while conveying contentment.
I realize not everyone has found their balance and I take your point that some of us may indeed harbor a fundamental dissatisfaction with life and that there is indeed something admirable in people that can be happy without ever traveling--that shouldn't be dismissed or downplayed. You are right that travel isn't going to fix you like a medication. It makes me think of this SNL skit:
Perfectly true yes, things are not either-of, and in making generalizations you miss the more subtle components. I suppose i am speaking necessarily of the travellers i have known. I didn't mean to imply they had an inherent defect, but rather that the culture they belong to - including the hideousness of our built-world, our home world in the places most of us live starting in the mid 20th along with the consumer culture it represents - is the defect. And that it is valid to want to escape from it, in the same way you would want to find the cure for some other disease that plagues you.
My other problem here is the irresponsibility of travel - as most do it - in a time of such gross human overshoot, which includes as a symptom carbon-emissions induced climate change. If a person walked - hiked the Appalachian trail indeed - or rode a bike, or a horse, or took a sailing ship, but how often is this the case? Travel is almost always the sending of ones' personal carbon footprint sky-high. I don't believe there is any justification for this - as a lifestyle, a regular thing - today. There is no supportable advocacy for this, the planet that supports us doesn't care what Joe or Jane Blow is personally gaining here in the way of a smidgen more perspective. At any rate, there are other ways of travel. I travel my local area. I chose my local area as a place actually worth being, the details of which could occupy a lifetime to explore, in a world where i see others mostly being in aesthetically challenged places that maximize their access to money. Perhaps money IS to them what makes a place worth being, in which case, they will indeed in all likelihood never be happy and always be wanting to find some escape. They may well know more about the "exotic" places they journey to than they know about their own home county - its history, its hidden corners, its magical spots, its worthwhile people, its flora and fauna. There is so much magic easily accessible to most locales, and yet we are always hopping jets or insupportably burning off endless tanks of hydrocarbon fuels going to somewhere far-off. Those are the folks i've known, that part is a failure of the imagination to me, the shallow part. Where it seems like it is not so much the destination as the act of running that is important.
This is great! There’s a lot I fully agree with here and have written a few pieces about this style of wandering you’re describing. I totally endorse that and think that’s actually the kernel of what travel is all about. Getting people to apply an adventurous mindset to the places they already inhabit similar to what Xavier de Maistre wrote about Room Travel in ‘A Journey Around My Room’ is going to be evermore important has population continues to grow and resources become more challenging to obtain and distribute.
Greatly appreciate you taking the time to expand. Love the thoughts and the back and forth. Hopefully to be continued. Cheers!
It's a relief to find a traveler who sees these things for what they are. As such, i'm grateful you are writing of the subject, getting your thoughts out there. May you reach a large audience! It would be of benefit to many to understand this stuff. Cheers back, and thanks.
As I was reading this I thought of how backpacking fills this primal human function almost perfectly. I haven't yet been able to figure out the logistics of doing a long trail like the AT while having a career and family, but I do frequent shorter trips, often just a night or two. Getting out of my comfort zone, challenging myself, and confronting a bit of danger or uncertainty adds to the fulfillment.
Strongly agree with this. We’re currently in the midst of our careers and raising our family too and I’m itching to do more long distance trails. We’re hoping to start doing shorter backpacking trips with our son soon and hopefully can be doing longer trips with him on the next five years. Of all the ways to travel backpacking strikes me as one of the best ways to experience a place and I often come away fulfilled than other forms of travel.
That’s awesome! We’re trying to figure out what is a good age to start trying some overnight backpacking. We’ve done some camping with him and he’s done well with that but not sure how he’d do with multiple overnights yet. Any suggestions? What age did you start doing that with your kids?
Well, almost all of my trips with them were car camping with adventures during the day. I have 2 kids and never wanted to take one without the other. But, my wife doesn't backpack (or camp much at all), and I wasn't able to carry gear and supplies for me and 2 kids, basically by myself.
I did take my son on a short backpacking trip with just the two of us. I think he was 8 at the time. He handled it well. The milage was short and ended up at a river he could play in.
I am self-employed, and control my time and schedule, so I don't think in terms of having one big annual vacation. In any given year, I might take one big trip. I might take several. I might take none. I take many short trips and weekend trips. I like to plan in advance, because planning is a lot of the fun. Then I am very flexible when I travel, ready to change plans. I accept that I will never see everything. So I just focus on enjoying the moment. I learned like ago that FOMO is a waste of time.
Fellow restlessness and explore enjoyer here 🙋🏼♂️. I find that making a mental shift to just being content with the time I had somewhere helps, as there’ll always be more to explore in any given place 🍻
One of the ways my Austrian husband and I coped with the pressure of time on vacation was to focus on visiting just one --or a maximum of two--places per two-week holiday. The first week was always fun, but my husband always became depressed in the second week because he knew we would soon be going home again. Now that we are retired, though, we have the luxury of going places whenever we want and staying for as long as we like!
My wife and I discuss this a lot, about how much buying a round trip ticket somewhere mixed with the demand to get back to work really forces a structure into your time on many trips. I can’t wait to experience being able to buy a one way ticket somewhere and seeing how that changes my view of things. Thanks for your sharing your thoughts Clarice.
I've gotten to the point where I'm usually satisfied with the amount of time we have in a place. I tell my fiancée that we know when we spent the "perfect" amount of time in a place when we are bored for exactly one day.
We can always come back under different circumstances or for a different season, but being bored for one day usually meant we did everything we wanted for this particular trip.
I travel full time and I want to see everything - especially the stuff that few other people see. But that is not always possible. I'm fine with that. We will return someday or go somewhere else fascinating.
I think some people are content with the highlights. Me, I hate that there are so many things I won't get to see and experience in my life.
My partner and I find that if we focus on living as those where we are traveling do, we find a sense of place rather than a sense of restlessness. We aren’t focused on the things to see as much as on how we soak in the culture. In return, we truly experience a depth that makes up for an endless search.
I think it helps when you’re able to disconnect. On my last 6 day rafting trip with no signal it felt like 2 weeks instead of 1. I left feeling quite restored. Of course, then I missed it.
I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but I've been traveling full time for seven years now and I'm rarely satisfied with the amount of time I get to spend somewhere. Perhaps bc that's I have to spend time working on our own newsletter. But I suspect it has more to do with knowing the world is a huge fascinating place and that I'll never get to see it all.
I think your insight is a great data point to have and an important one! It affirms what I already suspected--that restlessness and the desire to explore our world might just be a permanent trait we have. It's very human because we come to realize the world is a vast place and we know our time on the planet is ultimately limited. In maybe an odd way, that makes me feel better knowing that this isn't a problem that I'm going to necessarily resolve but can perhaps learn to somehow embrace and adapt to. Thanks for sharing that Michael! Cheers!
I think I embrace simply because it's part of what makes me me -- and I like the traveling version of me. I think it also helps me live a bit more in the moment, knowing that the time I have in each place is fleeting, so best appreciate it while I can.
I think what you are trying to medicate through travel - and i do believe travel is a drug the way so many approach it - is something that cannot be treated through travel. And this is why you want more. Because travel is not the cure to what ails you, nor the cure to what ails the rest of the gazillions who put "travel!" as number one on their lists. The ailment being a deep fundamental dissatisfaction with the nature of their lives, and quite possibly with the place they have chosen to live. Justifiably so, in many of our modern examples. What you are seeking in travel is a different life in a different place, but you aren't willing to take the risks to make it permanent. Beyond that, you haven't learned to be content in-place, which has become probably one the rarest skillsets today. I'm not impressed with travellers, the legions and legions of them out there, i think they are livng shallow lives. I'm impressed with the really happy people whom then tell you, "I have never been out of this valley in my life." If you can find such a person anymore, in this age of epidemic dissatisfaction.
Interesting and provocative thoughts. I'd disagree with some of it though, namely the idea that people are necessarily dissatisfied with their lives or have some kind of inherent defect. Personally and presently, I've never been more satisfied with my life. I'm surrounded by family in a town bustling with plenty of wonderful things to do. I'm becoming more involved in my community. I run nearly every day and practice Jiu Jitsu. Every evening I'm sitting down to read a book with a glass of wine once I put my child down to sleep. And I typically get to travel about four times a year. Relatively speaking, my life is great and feel like I'm in the best shape of my life and yet I still want to keep seeing more of the world. Not sure how that makes someone shallow, although I'd agree with you that there are plenty of shallow travelers out there.
But things aren't either-or.
To me, most things in life are about tradeoffs and it takes awhile for someone, especially when they are younger, to find their place in life. Traveling to different places presents our minds with alternatives of what our lives could be. Backpacking the Appalachian Trail radically shifted my perspective in this regard. Often travel can also remind us that the place we live is pretty damn good after all and might make us appreciate our lives and culture at home more. I don't see anything wrong with not being 100% content with everything and I'd question the premise that there are some of us that are perfectly content all the time in-place. I don't think the mind works that way. People can be very skilled at burying their suffering all the while conveying contentment.
I realize not everyone has found their balance and I take your point that some of us may indeed harbor a fundamental dissatisfaction with life and that there is indeed something admirable in people that can be happy without ever traveling--that shouldn't be dismissed or downplayed. You are right that travel isn't going to fix you like a medication. It makes me think of this SNL skit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbwlC2B-BIg
No, travel isn't going to fix deeper issues but neither will staying in-place.
Perfectly true yes, things are not either-of, and in making generalizations you miss the more subtle components. I suppose i am speaking necessarily of the travellers i have known. I didn't mean to imply they had an inherent defect, but rather that the culture they belong to - including the hideousness of our built-world, our home world in the places most of us live starting in the mid 20th along with the consumer culture it represents - is the defect. And that it is valid to want to escape from it, in the same way you would want to find the cure for some other disease that plagues you.
My other problem here is the irresponsibility of travel - as most do it - in a time of such gross human overshoot, which includes as a symptom carbon-emissions induced climate change. If a person walked - hiked the Appalachian trail indeed - or rode a bike, or a horse, or took a sailing ship, but how often is this the case? Travel is almost always the sending of ones' personal carbon footprint sky-high. I don't believe there is any justification for this - as a lifestyle, a regular thing - today. There is no supportable advocacy for this, the planet that supports us doesn't care what Joe or Jane Blow is personally gaining here in the way of a smidgen more perspective. At any rate, there are other ways of travel. I travel my local area. I chose my local area as a place actually worth being, the details of which could occupy a lifetime to explore, in a world where i see others mostly being in aesthetically challenged places that maximize their access to money. Perhaps money IS to them what makes a place worth being, in which case, they will indeed in all likelihood never be happy and always be wanting to find some escape. They may well know more about the "exotic" places they journey to than they know about their own home county - its history, its hidden corners, its magical spots, its worthwhile people, its flora and fauna. There is so much magic easily accessible to most locales, and yet we are always hopping jets or insupportably burning off endless tanks of hydrocarbon fuels going to somewhere far-off. Those are the folks i've known, that part is a failure of the imagination to me, the shallow part. Where it seems like it is not so much the destination as the act of running that is important.
This is great! There’s a lot I fully agree with here and have written a few pieces about this style of wandering you’re describing. I totally endorse that and think that’s actually the kernel of what travel is all about. Getting people to apply an adventurous mindset to the places they already inhabit similar to what Xavier de Maistre wrote about Room Travel in ‘A Journey Around My Room’ is going to be evermore important has population continues to grow and resources become more challenging to obtain and distribute.
Greatly appreciate you taking the time to expand. Love the thoughts and the back and forth. Hopefully to be continued. Cheers!
It's a relief to find a traveler who sees these things for what they are. As such, i'm grateful you are writing of the subject, getting your thoughts out there. May you reach a large audience! It would be of benefit to many to understand this stuff. Cheers back, and thanks.
As I was reading this I thought of how backpacking fills this primal human function almost perfectly. I haven't yet been able to figure out the logistics of doing a long trail like the AT while having a career and family, but I do frequent shorter trips, often just a night or two. Getting out of my comfort zone, challenging myself, and confronting a bit of danger or uncertainty adds to the fulfillment.
Strongly agree with this. We’re currently in the midst of our careers and raising our family too and I’m itching to do more long distance trails. We’re hoping to start doing shorter backpacking trips with our son soon and hopefully can be doing longer trips with him on the next five years. Of all the ways to travel backpacking strikes me as one of the best ways to experience a place and I often come away fulfilled than other forms of travel.
My kids are older now, but I loved taking them on camping adventures when they were young. Kids are fascinated by nature!
That’s awesome! We’re trying to figure out what is a good age to start trying some overnight backpacking. We’ve done some camping with him and he’s done well with that but not sure how he’d do with multiple overnights yet. Any suggestions? What age did you start doing that with your kids?
Well, almost all of my trips with them were car camping with adventures during the day. I have 2 kids and never wanted to take one without the other. But, my wife doesn't backpack (or camp much at all), and I wasn't able to carry gear and supplies for me and 2 kids, basically by myself.
I did take my son on a short backpacking trip with just the two of us. I think he was 8 at the time. He handled it well. The milage was short and ended up at a river he could play in.
I am self-employed, and control my time and schedule, so I don't think in terms of having one big annual vacation. In any given year, I might take one big trip. I might take several. I might take none. I take many short trips and weekend trips. I like to plan in advance, because planning is a lot of the fun. Then I am very flexible when I travel, ready to change plans. I accept that I will never see everything. So I just focus on enjoying the moment. I learned like ago that FOMO is a waste of time.
Fellow restlessness and explore enjoyer here 🙋🏼♂️. I find that making a mental shift to just being content with the time I had somewhere helps, as there’ll always be more to explore in any given place 🍻
One of the ways my Austrian husband and I coped with the pressure of time on vacation was to focus on visiting just one --or a maximum of two--places per two-week holiday. The first week was always fun, but my husband always became depressed in the second week because he knew we would soon be going home again. Now that we are retired, though, we have the luxury of going places whenever we want and staying for as long as we like!
My wife and I discuss this a lot, about how much buying a round trip ticket somewhere mixed with the demand to get back to work really forces a structure into your time on many trips. I can’t wait to experience being able to buy a one way ticket somewhere and seeing how that changes my view of things. Thanks for your sharing your thoughts Clarice.
I've gotten to the point where I'm usually satisfied with the amount of time we have in a place. I tell my fiancée that we know when we spent the "perfect" amount of time in a place when we are bored for exactly one day.
We can always come back under different circumstances or for a different season, but being bored for one day usually meant we did everything we wanted for this particular trip.
I travel full time and I want to see everything - especially the stuff that few other people see. But that is not always possible. I'm fine with that. We will return someday or go somewhere else fascinating.
I think some people are content with the highlights. Me, I hate that there are so many things I won't get to see and experience in my life.