What Inspires Us To Travel

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Leigh Shulman wrote a wonderful and thoughtful response to the article and subsequent tangled comments relating to whether travel writers should care about their environmental impact. I just checked and the defending and validating is still going on but don’t go over there until you’re finished here, because this post is not about that. I should’ve been paying attention to the bigger topic Leigh was writing about, but I completely started down another path when I read this:

“Then I think of my parents or Noah’s grandparents who are lifelong world travelers. Both couples started taking cruises later in life when their regular forms of travel became too rigorous.

My dad, for example, simply doesn’t have the energy to travel the way he had in the past, and so when he tells me he’s going traveling, even on a cruise, I rejoice, because I remember too many days he was too tired, too stiff and too frustrated with not feeling well to leave the house.

Aunt Jane took Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Charles on a cruise when they were no longer healthy enough to go on their long solo-treks to China, Costa Rica, New Zealand and Israel. It was the last trip of Grandma Ruth’s lifetime.”

When family members were ill or not as energetic as they once were they figured out some way to continue to travel. They did not give up. They were still getting out in the world and expanding their views and being amazed by life. This is the most inspiring thing I’ve read all week. I want to be those people when I am older. I love that other people in the family helped the elders go on their trip and made it special for them.

The other thing I noticed is that Leigh is from a long line of travellers. No, life-long world travellers. She was raised with the example of travel. It is part of who she is and from what I’ve read so far, it is what she is instilling in her young daughter.

So this prompted something I’ve been thinking of recently…where do we get the desire to travel? Some folks have no interest at all, others have traveled so much for work that to stay home is blessed peace. For others travel is part of life and perhaps life itself. My father was an airline pilot and my traveling started young. Our family went on great vacations and my parents went on even greater vacations, sans kids, on a regular basis. So my example growing up was that travel was important and to be pursued.

Inspired by these early trips, when I was in college I went to London with a group and completely fell in love with seeing the country by train. We were encouraged to liberally use our BritRail pass and this changed my life. Although I traveled with my peers, it was a turning point for me when I boarded a train alone and headed to Oxford and Salisbury and the Cliffs of Dover and Yorktown.

Then through working at a camp at the suggestion of a friend, I discovered backpacking and my travels took a more grounded and organic approach. My experience hiking the Appalachian Trail and the Colorado Trail reinforced my love of the woods and solitude. The idea to hike the AT came from the director of our camp and it lodged in my brain until I made the trip happen several years later. It is a trip I plan to repeat, and I hope to hike other trails as well. And all because someone else did it and it sounded like something I should do too.

So who or what has inspired you to travel? Was it a family activity that you grew up with? Or a random idea you had while at work? Are you the only one in your family who enjoys traveling? Or does everyone like to travel? Also, do you feel supported in your desire to travel or do you find yourself justifying it?

Tell us how it started for you!

(Thank you to Leigh for inspiring this post)