What does travel mean to you

Although I may have never traveled as far as you, I had been able to journey to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, and I enjoyed spending hours searching for creatures as small as colugos and parakeets, to creatures as large as monitors and hornbills! In conclusion, my idea on traveling is to go to places near or far, meeting amazing new people and things, learning new things and to just, you know, relax. I also hope to be as popular as you or any other blogger out there! Hey KC — Thank you for sharing your definition of travel.

And it makes perfect sense to me. I certainly do hope though that you do have a chance to visit the places on your list one day as well!

Have you explored your own country? I meant Earl! Travel to me is a state of mind, being outside your comfort zone, exploring and discovering, trying all the flavours of life. I spent traveling Europe and am currently spending 6 months in South America. I see no distinction between the three. Whilst it seems more exotic to be jetsetting around the globe. Feelings of adventure, being lost and making new friends can start at home.

You just need to create the adventure. Travel to me is opening my mind to new ideas and possibilities. It is a time for reflection and observation. Seated in a restaurant, how and what does the man sitting at the next table order? I find that when I travel, my mind does not rest. It keeps me curious and on my feet, constantly looking for a new idea to chew on to.

I guess everyone relates to a familiar feeling of adrenaline rush of a new place. Having said that, traveling does not mean commuting to me, it actually means displacing yourself for a long-ish period of time till you start to identify with the place, get rid of the initial confusion of cultures and just when that feeling of having settled down, occurs — moving to a new place all over again. Travel to me is a freedom from daily life hassle and regular people.

When I travel I get a chance to meet people of different culture and religions which help in understanding their views. The more I travel the more I become greedy to visit different places. What I actually find harder to define, are the moments when we are not traveling. Of portuguese, spanish, greek and catalan heritage, born in London, lived traveling around Spain and the UK, and age 17 moved to Brazil — alone.

Wandering around an completely unfamiliar area mapless, taking in the things that capture my attention. Tasting new foods, and allowing the sensations to wash over my tastebuds. To observe people in my destinations go about their daily lives, and trying to imagine myself in their shoes, and what they are talking about, in spite of any language barrier. To float in a tropical sea, as the hot air on my exposed side contrasts with the mild coolness of the azure ocean.

All of these are at the heart of traveling for me. Home is where I pay my rent. That is currently Japan and when I curl up on my futon on the floor I am home. Going back to Wales is travelling to my hometown, and travelling around Japan is just that. If I have a bike and a tent then the tent is my home. Everything else is travel. I think this is a really interesting question and I have thought a lot about it.

So I have to try to travel at home, and capture the same feeling of freedom and adventure that travelling to new places gives me. For me, that is all about being open to new experiences, making a conscious effort not just to fall into familiar routines e.

I remember once I saw a couple taking a photo of a bus stop. I had walked past this bus stop every single day without noticing, and I only realised it was there when looking at it from the perspective of people travelling. I now try to keep my eyes open and experience my home as if it was somewhere new.

In that way, I can feel as if I am travelling all year round. Travel for me means just getting out of the house and seeing and experiencing something new. I consider that short jaunt traveling because I was able to get out of the house and see something I have never seen before. To me travel is all about experiencing something new, no matter how big or small.

I think this is something that comes to mind for everyone. The answer is that what travel means differs with each and every person. We might agree with one another on a definition but in general we all have our own…theory?

More or less. People or individuals are what give travel meaning. Still, there are others who travel to broaden their networks. That way, I keep both feet on the ground but my sights reach far beyond the horizon. I move around and settle down for a few months to a year then go again.

We can probably all agree that generally, travel makes the world a better place. Great post! I like your philosophical approach; it got me thinking while I burn up in my house because the fires in Yosemite National Park are killing the O2….

For example parts of the world that make the news, i. Syria seemed distant and interpreted in a certain color before I went there. Now that I have friends there, memories, and a better understanding of the complexity of the place, the mainstream media looks a bit silly and under equipped in telling its story.

Travel is the great leveler of black and white. Enjoy Brasov! Brasov is the place that gave me my travel bug. I went there in before the revolution. I was 13 at the time and went skiing with my school. I would love to return one day and find my crazy ski instructor who plied us with schnapps every morning!! This is a tricky one… travel is different for each of us. I think we each define travel for ourselves. For me — travel is about getting to know a place, taking time, having local experiences, immersion in sights, sounds, and smells, learning a language, losing your way, making new connections, finding a rhythm, fostering understanding, returning again, slipping into new lives — if only for awhile.

Travel, for me, is the infinite whatever. I think the word travel could be more complex to a traveller, like the Eskimos have 48 words for snow so the traveller should have varying degrees of travel. In these times we just wanted to distinguish ourselves from holiday makers as we would try to blend in with the locals rather then expecting to find the things enjoyed at home.

I did the first 6 months with 3 other friends but in later years I use to like travelling alone as it was the only way to really get to know locals and other travellers as it made you open to be approached where as being with someone you seemed to miss everything by sitting together in bars and restaurants.

Some times it is cheaper to get a room when there are two of you but on the whole it was ok I would often find a free place to doss down like a beach or an old building or toilet block. I agree going back to places you have enjoyed makes a lot of sense and as you say you always find new things to you may have missed first time and things change.

The old adage about never going back to place in case it is not so good should be ignored, if you enjoyed seeing first time it is often even better next time as you know what to expect. So not having any guidebooks helped to take a unique path and there were always local tourist offices if you wanted to check if there was anything special in the area.

Travelling is wonderfully complex, from hitch hiking, motor bike, trains, boats, planes they are all interesting and doing some work, staying put or moving on they are all just part of the wonderful tapestry of life and travel. I believe my 10 years of travelling taught me more then my 10 years in school and I learnt to relate and get along with people from all over the World so I think it was the best thing I ever did.

Happy wanderings Earl I look forward to reading your stories for years to come and maybe one day I will meet you on the road and exchange some more views with you. I ever pondered about this question too! If you move away from your original home and move somewhere semi-permanently, does it count as travelling or going back. Given that I have been living on a dot on the map my whole life, to me travelling is getting anywhere with my passport being stamped. Travel has also given me a great appreciation for how big my home Australia truly is, as New Zealand aside, nowhere is closer than a 6 hour plane flight from here in Melbourne.

If that can be the case at home, then how could you possibly discount anywhere else on the planet? I began a slow travel about a year ago. I drove cross-country to the SF Bay area, but within a week went down to San Luis Obispo for a work-trade opportunity.

I still live nomadically — about two-six weeks in one place through housesitting, work-exchanges, etc. I love it. I have enough time here to find all the best spots for food, music, attend local festivals and art shows, and enough of a base to explore all the funky spots of the surrounding cities and the beautiful nature so close by.

I plan to use this same mode of travel when I head to South America in January. I realized I want both: to have a place I call home but have the opportunity to take trips several times in a year. As long as you are traveling, you are learning. There is no way to escape it. Travel is about going to a place and having all your assumptions and what you thought you knew of the world turned completely upside down. Travel is about doing things that scare you, talking with strangers, getting to the top of a mountain that looked insurmountable.

As a young adult I struggled with direction not knowing what I wanted in life. I bounced around from program to program in University and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life post graduation. The best decision I ever made was to accept a teaching contract in South Korea. Within a few days of completing the E2 Visa I was living literally half way around the world immersed in a culture completely different from my own. I saved diligently during this time with the idea that I would take an extended backpacking trip afterwards.

While traveling through SE Asia I found direction and a sense of purpose in my life for the first time as an adult. I would have never met her had I never traveled nor started my travel blog. It was in South Korea, working as teachers, that we met one another through our blogs. I owe all of this to travel. In seven years of perpetually wandering across the globe I have never once felt unsafe.

Yet I have come to understand that though we may wear different clothes, speak a different languages, eat different foods, or practice different religions, at our core we all want the same things: a roof over our heads, enough food to eat, clothes to wear, safety, freedom, and a better life for our children. This realization has shaped my blog from its inception, as I focus on culture and immerse in local cultures whenever possible.

I firmly believe that the better we get to know one another as individuals, the less likely we will want to kill one another. Travel fosters understanding and acceptance, and I believe it offers a tremendous potential for fostering world peace. In my mid-twenties, I was living in the city closest to where I grew up and working in a field that I hated long enough to get paid better than I would if I switched career paths. My dream of traveling the world had faded in favor of living the typical urban twentysomething lifestyle.

I felt stuck. And so I left — went to Thailand in , and have been traveling full-time since. Travel has shown me landscapes, people, and cultures that I only though existed in my dreams. Travel has given me everything! You can see for yourself how cultures operate on a day to day basis which allows you to form your own opinions of cultures instead of simply accepting what the media tells us. You see people and how they interact, what they eat, how they love, and what their downfalls are.

And finally travel gives you the opportunity to see yourself in a new light. It will make you more confident and aware of your own abilities as it pushes your limits, and gets you out of your safe routine. By going outside your comfort zone and exposing yourself to new people and places and traditions, you short-circuit education that would not take root as viscerally merely by reading about those experiences in a book. The way I travel has changed — I spend months instead of weeks in a place now, more of a base than a visit.

But because of all that newness and the small things that make a country or city fascinating little gestures, food traditions, different festivals or celebration it has never felt boring or old.

Travel allows me to live from a space of joy, gratitude, wonder and awe. These are our highest states of emotion and only contribute to spreading peace and love. Travel also satisfies the values I esteem the most- freedom and fun. Therefore, I can only be truly happy and satisfied if I am moving from place to place and choosing how my day looks.

I also get to meet really cool people and have friends all over the world. I LOVE that! While adventure activities are our favourite part of travel, it is what we learn about the world that always sticks with us. Travel is the best education that anyone can have. When we travel we are fascinated by history. That same history that put us to sleep in the classroom, suddenly springs to life when we are standing on a historical site experiencing it first hand.

We are captivated by geography and drawn in to Social Studies. Everything we learned in school suddenly becomes clear when we travel. We look forward to learning more and investigating deeper. I think that most of what we know about the world comes from our experiences traveling. You can read about it and study it all you want from books, but nothing compares to seeing a place with your own two eyes.

Our minds are opened to new cultures and different ways of thinking, we care more about world issues and are compelled to take an active role conservation. When we are at home reading about it or watching on TV we are detached, when we are in the moment we suddenly understand. Travel shows you all the facets of humanity and broadens your mind to the possibilities of life. Wow, what a great roundup — and how inspiring!

Congrats on the great roundup! Sofie recently posted… New series! Belgian beer: De Koninck. They all gave great answers! Happy travels everyone! Christina Gmyr recently posted… Toledo Spain in a day. I love it. Beth recently posted… Our Epic Seaplane Adventure.

I only hope that my travels one day will be half as inspiring as some of the people in this post have been to me. Great post. Happy travels x Jade recently posted… Travelling around Christmas time. By sharing your experiences you will inspire others. Next time! As a fellow travel blogger and school teacher, I love how the theme of education runs throughout all these interviews. I was always fascinated when visiting places that I learned about in school, but you retain so much more when you actually experience a place vs reading about it in a book.

Travel really is the best way to learn! What a great post! Thanks for sharing. I believe by being true to yourself and reaching your dream — through travel and meeting other cultures — you improve yourself and are ultimately a better person to be around.

By meeting other cultures I think you become more understanding, which leads you to being a better person. I know it has helped me a lot.

I love all these reasons! I think Barbara hits it for me though. Great post…thanks for sharing to everyone! I was so inspired by this post, it was lovely! I thought it was interesting too how each of these bloggers had their own specific answer, which means something different to them individually, yet the answers all had the same strings running through them.

Gotta love universal lessons that can still affect each person on a deep, real level. Answer — Food! Great round-up! Some interesting and inspiring thoughts here. To me travel means growth of oneself and also learning how to connect with others on a deeper level. When we travel we are forever students. We are always learning about people, places, and maybe most importantly always learning about ourselves.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Yes, add me to your mailing list. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. This website uses cookies to improve your experience.

We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More. Inspiration Travel. What does travel mean to you? When you open yourself to the wonders of travel you too will never be the same.

I asked a few of my favorite travel writers what travel means to them. I hope they inspire you as they do me. Travel has been important to me ever since I was introduced to Europe when I was 16 years old. My grandparents took me on a river cruise from Vienna to Amsterdam—a two week journey where I saw people with completely different lifestyles speaking different languages.

It sparked a flame of curiosity in me about the world. Thirteen years later, my husband and I moved to Amsterdam to live life as expats and travel as much as possible to absorb the cultures, languages, and food from everywhere we go. My wanderlust never dies and is always refueled every time I go somewhere new and meet wonderful people. Travel makes my heart sing, makes me deeply happy.