on travel.

"The most important lessons in life can never be expressed in black and white, but must be experienced. Experience is the greatest teacher." - Benny Lewis 

I just stumbled across Benny Lewis, a world traveler who has yet to have a "home" for the past eight years. He writes, “Eight Years. That is 416 weeks, or almost 3,000 days. This is the amount of time that I have not had a fixed home; moving to a new country, culture and language every few months and taking absolutely everything I own with me. It has been a significant percentage of my life, and it’s still long from over.”  People like Lewis inspire me so much. I am so intrigued by the stories they tell, the experiences they have had, and their love of the world (Check out Benny Lewis’ wonderful 29 Lessons from Traveling the World).

I have had a strong passion for cultures and travel in general since I was young. Every summer  through high school and most of college I tried to get somewhere new, and this included trips to Ethiopia, Thailand, China, and New Zealand. I cannot express how significantly those trips transformed my outlook on the world and life in general. The exposure to culture, the experience of being a foreigner, the necessity of adaptation & flexibility, the eagerness to learn, and the reality of different circumstances deeply impacted and challenged my way of thinking.  Truthfully, my travel experiences have had a large role in making me the person I am and defining what I seek out of life. 

me at mt. hamilton, wa. by m.noel

While my experience living on the West Coast this year has definitely been an adventurous and wonderful change-up for me, I have to admit I do get that insatiable international travel bug every now and then. I love being surrounded by the newness of a different culture, language, food, and landscape. 

That is why I am so intrigued by such travelers. And I am not talking the 'take a vacation once a year' travelers. I mean the vagabonds, the couchsurfers, the people who live to travel, hopping around from country to country and working whatever job they can get to make ends meet and keep moving. Something about that life has always intrigued me, because I get it completely. I get the thirst for travel, the hunger for adventure, the whole idea of a "new and different sun."

The longest I have ever been out of the States would be the four months spent studying in Ireland or the two months spent volunteering in Botswana--definitely not long term by any means. One guy I met when I was in Ethiopia was on a world tour for a year, never staying in one place for more than three weeks. A new friend we met couchsurfing works in hospitality so that he can be sent all over the world for long stretches of time. He has never stayed home for more than six months in the past few years.

I used to think that that would be me: pack up the essentials, book the flight, and just go. However, after being able to reflect on my experience living out West, I have made some conclusions. While I love this idea of being on the move, traveling and living life to the fullest extent of experience, I do not think I could join this group of travelers. I love it, and I need to meet these people and hear their stories often. I would love to have the means and opportunity to travel to a new country every year and be able to visit friends across the world. However, I have learned that I value friends and family more than I value my wanderlust. E-mails and phone calls are simply not the same as being near people you love and sharing memories with them and I do not want to miss out on that. I also have shocked myself by finding that I do need some form of stability. I have lived out of a suitcase for long enough to realize that I like to have a place to call home.

Mark Twain wrote in The Innocents Abroad, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." This has always been one of my favorite quotes as I believe it is so true. By putting yourself out there and challenging what you think you know or what you have learned from your own perspective of the world, you are able to broaden your whole way of thinking. Travel is so wonderful even for that end alone.

women walking in calcutta, india. january 2010

 I am so thankful for my experiences. I have been allowed the ability of travel;  I have met some of the most inspiring and interesting people, discussed different perspectives, seen a vast amount of the beauty of the world--and I hope there is much more of it in my future to come. However, I have concluded that, for me (as I do believe that it is different for everybody), life is best shared and I truly value being within close proximity to people I care about. I need a balance of travel/adventure and family/loved ones. Now the trick is finding and maintaining that balance.

In my experience and through talking to many different people about their own experience, I think that a significant part of finding happiness is the discovery and defining of your own values in life, whatever they may be--travel, family, career or a combination of things--and then making that a reality as best you can. And, after all is said and done, whatever life you chose is a journey.

"We live in a world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." - Jawaharial Nehru

first image is the berlin wall, berlin, germany march 2009, the second is by chase keller. 
middle pictures are botswana 2005, and kids in ethiopia 2006 by matt west.