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Why Travel?

Everyone else is writing about travel. Why should I?

It used to be that I never went anywhere; I grew up in a household immune to the charms of foreign travel. We did take road trips to the warmer climes of Eastern Washington (where we escaped from the wetness of the Olympic Peninsula's rain shadow), to the clam-, oyster- or geoduck-studded beaches of Puget Sound, to the national parks of the Western states, and almost every bowling alley and Eagles club in between. I was not deprived. I loved packing the station wagon with musty canvas camping gear and eating resourceful meals fried in a skillet on the Coleman stove. To fly anywhere was unheard of, let alone to a place where there were no Arcos parsing out plastic pairs of wild animals to us kids with Noah's Ark sets. That would have to wait.

I waited until my 36th year. In 2000, at the urging of my good friend and co-worker Dave Fox, I took my first trip overseas. Because the travel bug or virus or disease was never passed to me in my youth, I had to first acquire it vicariously, and then, out of necessity. One night over I'm sure what was a lot of beer, I must have blurted out my desire to visit Ireland, and Dave took me seriously. His solution: meet him in Oslo after he was finished leading his Scandinavia tour, spend a few days there with his family, and continue on to Ireland for a week of road tripping, sightseeing — and bar hopping.

I could not say no. The place Dave and I worked together is called Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door, a company specializing in budget European travel. See my dilemma? I needed to go. And Dave's skills as a multilingual tour guide would come in handy anywhere.

That first trip was full of surprises, running the gamut from glorious little epiphanies to utter boredom. Meeting the Filtvedts (the family with whom Dave lived as an exchange student in high school) and getting to see them since has been one of my favorite connections in life. Hearing Dave speak Norwegian fluently and having him translate right back gave me some interesting insight on communication and his abilities as a translator. Finding decent food after 9 p.m. in Temple Bar in Dublin was an improbability, as was locating the right bus to the airport. Thank god the taxi driver who took us there threw in a comprehensive speed tour monolog along with his inflated fare. Not having a clearly defined understanding of our desired stops created a little additional tension between my travel partner and I. That coupled with our respective laundry lists of neuroses made for some awkward moments between us. But we were able to march forward and accept our differences. Ireland is full of warm conversationalists, and there you can meet a cast of characters you'll never forget. Dave was writing a piece about traditional Irish music, which on one occasion led us into an interesting discussion with a somewhat inebriated young I.R.A. supporter. It was an exchange neither of us would have had anywhere else. Surprise.

My travel journal from that trip was admittedly grumpy in spots. I guess I didn't really know what to expect — to the depths of what "knowing what to expect" means. That is the sliding scale fee of travel. Some of us, by virtue of our virtues and abilities to see the value in any experience, come back from our journeys absolutely beaming, even if at times the trip was far less than perfect. Or perhaps we've traveled before and understand that the experience is always a grab bag, that if we're not the types to accept the "glass half full" philosophy, we'd better shift our attitudes or suffer the continual onslaught of the consequences of travel. The first-time traveler can't possibly understand any of this until they're in the thick of it. I'm personally thankful that my first trip had a few little bumps. And, my dear friend, understand that they were little bumps.

As our company's art director, one of my annual projects is to produce our tour catalog. Several of Rick's travel philosophies are espoused therein, including my personal favorite: "Travel is intensified living." The actual sentence reads "Travel is intensified living — maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. It's recess, and we need it." The first couple of catalogs, I hadn't yet been to Europe and those words didn't really mean much; "maximum thrills per minute" made me think of adrenalin-pulsing activities like bungee jumping. It wasn't until some moment in Ireland — possibly during that first ride west as a passenger on the wrong side, as a driver on the other wrong side, or the first time Dave and I got lost — that those words finally made sense. It's true. Dammit.

Since that series of revelations, I have been set free of the burden of a perfect trip. To travel anywhere is to have a life-altering experience, even if you're visiting the volcano at the south end of your state. A friend once said that each romantic relationship is a stepping stone to the definitive one. What that has in common with travel is the stepping stone aspect, that each prior trip enhances the next. But with travel, there may be no ultimate trip, unless that's one's goal. My subsequent journeys have only gotten better. I think it has to do with experience, expectations, and a little wisdom. Whatever the case, for me, to travel is to put my personal philosophies to the test while consuming the world around me.

As this site develops, I will post more insights on the travel phenomenon. For the moment, I'm fascinated by how writers, photographers, filmmakers and everyone else is taken with it. It's a topic that equalizes us all. Anyone who chooses to share their experiences contributes to the pool. I've personally come into a new topic area that I'm excited about and will continue to read and write about it as long as I'm physically able.

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Revised 1/2007. ©1999-2007 R. Pelikan unless otherwise noted.