The Art of Travel – Creating a Masterpiece of Your Life with travel inspiration
The art of travel – Why Travel?
What is the art of travel and why would anyone want to leave the safety and relative comforts of home in pursuit of the unknown? Especially now!
What is the Art of Travel? In today’s uncertain times with the awful COVID 19 pandemic literally jailing us in our homes, it is difficult to think of something seemingly frivolous such as travel. Many may argue that considering travel when the economy is getting slaughtered and social distancing is making us all recluses, travel plans are the least priority. Perhaps, but consider this. Isn’t this the time to really be thinking about travel?
Home is where the heart is, as they say. And boy, have we had a serious dose of heart lately. This, in a lock-down and captive in our own homes, more than any other time, is a great opportunity to consider what we would like to do post-COVID.
Hard to imagine now, but this too shall pass. Fair enough, travel may be different, perhaps in time, more expensive, as cost sensitive space has to be increased to facilitate social spacing – from airlines, hotels and cruise ships, the game will be a different species.
However, initially, you may be seeing some incredible deals as the tourist industry starts to try and woo the customers back. Be ready to jump on these deals. They most likely will come.
You may not be feeling it at this very moment, but the time will come when your desire to roam will be extreme as you break from the shackles of lock-down and, like the starving soul on a diet of bread and water, you will see the overladen buffet tables of rich, diverse and delicious looking travel destinations.
Travel is in our DNA. We have always roamed and explored as mankind. It is a cellular level quest that needs satiation.
The Art of Travel is the art of seeing with new eyes and what you do with that new experience
Seems like a silly question, but ask yourself.. Why do we travel and what is it in our nature that calls most of us to move in exploration? It is interesting to me that when I first wrote this piece and then discovered there was a popular book by the same title, written by Englishman, Alain de Botton. I was curious, so I read it. It is a well written book that examines travel and why and how we do it, approaching it from a totally different perspective.
Whilst I initially thought it was a somewhat jaded and cynical offering, it actually became clear to me what the authors message really was – at least to my perspective. So much of what he wrote about regarding our approach to travel and why we did it resonated with my own beliefs.
The book brought about the question – a fundamental one – Why do we travel? And this was my very quest in life – to understand. Here’s my own personal take on that answer.
Travel inspiration starts early in our lives
Think back when you were a child. Were you fascinated by the stories that involved distant lands and were filled with adventure? I certainly was. I yearned to see these great places for myself. Egypt, the Victoria Falls, the Orient. It all seemed so magical to me. My travel inspiration was awakened.
It is human nature to want to challenge ourselves. It is, however, my firm belief that we all have primordial needs to wander and explore. As children we generally have an urge to seek and learn…to find new things and cross over new territories – for the thrill and joy of discovery. We have this inbuilt desire to expand our environment and feed from experiences.
I wanted to go someplace and do something. But, whatever my inspiration, it was just that. A feeling of want. What about the motivation?
What motivates us to travel?
Why we travel is personal and different for all of us. Our motivations are varied. Having met and spoken to travelers practically every week for the last 10 years, due to my occupation in the travel industry, I discovered some common threads on why people choose to travel. Maybe you want to escape, perhaps go and learn some things.
What is it that makes us want to root up from our daily lives and go traveling? Travel is considered one of the top stressful things we can do- The preparation, the arrangements from preparing the home for departure, making plans for the pets, maybe our kids or ageing parents can be a huge mission. And then the actual packing and going to the airport. That’s just stage one.
So what is this desire to break from our comfort zone and go, leaving all that is familiar and what we know behind? Is there anything artful in that? And what exactly are we looking for
In our adult lives, perhaps we suppress this desire, squashing it for perceived security and stability. We surround ourselves with familiarity until we are soaked with only what we know, and to change, well, that would be far too disruptive.
Our own lives get in the way of anything new. We lay still our brush colors of life, left dormant on our God-given paint palettes. Our canvas shrinks and perhaps our colors fade or posture with the dimness of predictable sameness.
Here’s a list of many reasons we travel and perhaps one will resonate with you. If it does, and you haven’t traveled…maybe it’s time to get out your artist paint brush and start your first brush strokes of your own masterpiece in the art of travel. Hopefully you will identify a reason and be enveloped in your own travel inspiration. Modern travel means that niche markets exist for almost every ones taste. The choices are limitless for all travel types.
- Expanding your horizons – literally and figuratively
- Celebration – Friend or family celebration or maybe your own personal reward
- Escape – You may just need to escape – from a broken relationship, a bad job, the hum-drum mundane…
- Rejuvenation – Perhaps some self pampering is in order with a change of environment
- To improve your relationship – maybe you need to have time to yourself. Or perhaps go with your partner and strengthen your ties. Travel can do that…or completely undo it…(warning!)
- You feel the need for adventure – to break out and just get lit up by…something!
- Self reflection – just stepping out of the familiar and into something totally foreign and new will open so many mental doors for us.
- Perhaps, under all the layers of education and conditioning, a free spirit lies dormant. Find out with the Free Spirit quiz You just never know..
Travel and...life
The way I look at the experience of life is as though it is a masterpiece waiting to happen. Our empty canvas (save for the genetic decided framework and shape), starts to fill with time. Splashes of pain, love, beauty, heartache, gratitude, tears, laughter, joy and sadness. This is the convoluted strokes of our lives.
There are dark and light shades. The dark and light give depth and meaning to our masterpiece and even though we would sooner not have that dreaded darkness, it becomes relevant within the larger scheme of our canvas.
It is a necessity for our artwork to have life and dimension – to be filled with interesting perspectives created from the shadows and light. Just our daily lives can fill this canvas with color – with our successes, our family, friend and the inevitable trials and tribulations. However, to my mind, travel brings more to our canvas, it expands our frame of work as we learn new things, meet new people, taste new foods, embrace new cultures, make new friends and broaden our palette. This is real travel inspiration – the knowledge of what we get in return for ‘breaking out’ and simply going.
This, I have always thought of as the gift of anothers bright and exotic colors that I do not have at my immediate disposal. I am invited to go across and take some of this brightness for myself so I may add it to my own artwork.
Travel quotes to inspire and color your life
The Art Of Travel is not about simply going to a destination. It's about what you do when you get there.
Travel itself can offer only so much. One needs to really dip into the colorful palette to get the full spectrum of vibrancy that is on offer. Meaning that we need to indulge, explore and soak up the culture of where we visit. We must not just see, we must look.
Sitting in some English speaking resort in a foreign country and seeing nothing but a swimming pool and eating western food is okay if that’s all you want but honestly, you could do that some place at home and for a lot cheaper.
Sure, maybe you go for the weather and that’s fine. Warmer climes is a good reason, so is snow laden alps if that’s your thing. And the colors will come your way. But they can be deeper and richer..
Trying the food, attempting to speak the language, going off the beaten path of tourist centers and really endeavoring to understand and learn about the people and the culture of the country you visit is truly where those magnificent colors of memory and learning can be gathered. To embellish your own canvas with the brushstrokes from other worlds is to create so much more to your own painting and eventual legacy of a life lived….. That is the Art of Travel.
COVID 19 will become that moment in history that we will share in stories and media to new generations. We are living that history now. A global crisis that has potentially shown our human frailty, uplifted our humanity and adjusted our priorities. Life is about family, helping and appreciating each other and making memories – creating that rich and colorful canvas. The Art of travel is one such noble pursuit that we can embrace post-COVID 19. Let’s not just be the Instagram tourists. Let’s be travelers.
Happy, colorful trails, my friend!