I love to travel. I have flown more in the last 20 days than I have in the past 3 years. And for the record, I have been on a plane at least once each of those years. So after more days on the road in the last month than I have spent at home, its time to reflect.
I have been asked a dozen or more times over the past week what I liked best in Spain and France. I have said lots of things, I love the food, I loved the city, I loved the people and the culture. But I think if I am really honest the thing I like best was the “going”. The new and unseen. I am not the first to walk a street, of course, but it is a first for me. I love the first dozen times I walk down a street. I love to see an ancient altar in a church built hundreds of years before my hometown had streets. I love the common things, that are mundane to a local because it is entirely new and different for me. I love the people. How they ride the train and shop in the local market.
“There is nothing new under the sun.” It’s a quote I want to say I love, but if I am honest, I hate it. It is silly really, there are new ideas and thoughts every day. But that is not why the quote earns my ire. There are so many things that are new to me. And I love that.
I like to write while on long trips. I keep a little journal documenting the things I did and the places I saw. I fill it with all the paper pieces of the trip, tickets, maps, and brochures. I carry it with me. From one place to the next, churches, cafes and along the sea. But I mostly write at the end of the day, sitting on the couch or my bed and early in the morning wrapped around a coffee at the table.
I love the perspective. I love that every day is so important that is seems intolerable to let it pass without capturing at least something on paper.
It changes me every time I travel. Leaving home for more than a few days, especially when the going is sole purpose is to travel, to be somewhere else. I find things, small things, that are done differently elsewhere. I pick up some of those things because they are better or maybe just better for me. The way I write the date, how I ride a train, brew coffee, or dry cloths.
Travel is perfectly selfish and the benefit is entirely personal. It is more important then what I saw and touched and all the new tastes. It’s about letting it change me. Returning home better, even if only I notice the difference.
