How I like to Travel - jim

To get he most out of traveling you have to let yourself be a little uncomfortable. This may seem an odd statement, but after many years of travel, and even more of life, I've come to believe that it is the secret to having a great life and learning experience while visiting those parts of the world that we don't call home. I believe being a little uncomfortable is useful in almost any life experience where your goal is to learn and grow more insightful.

In no way do I intend to demean other ways of spending free time away from home. I have taken trips where I was essentially a tourist, adhering to a tight schedule, staying in good hotels, and eating in fine restaurants, and have had a great time, as well as learning from the places I visited. I have also had great vacations, times for me to kick back, rest and recharge in comfortable places away from schedules and responsibilities. These are also great choices and, depending on the circumstances, some times the best choices in allocating free time.

But for me, when I have the time and energy, nothing beats the kind of travel that pushes my comfort zone. It provides the kind of experience from which I not only learn the most about the places through which I am traveling but also learn the most about myself and this life I've been given to live.

A fair question at this point is why I would possibly want to give my valuable free time over to being uncomfortable. Actually its is not only a fair question, but also an important one. So, by way of explanation, here are a few thoughts that might put this idea of mine into better perspective. First of all, when I say uncomfortable I do not mean miserable, being miserable only puts the attention back on the traveler and that doesn't help one learn. I mean that style of traveling that forces you to have interactions with the people and cultures of the places you are visiting. Simple things, like getting guesthouse reservations, ordering a meal in a local restaurant, traveling by locally used transport, bus, train, or rickshaw, not always contrasting how things are done where you are to how they are done at home, or getting to know the people in your sleeping compartment on a train, can introduce a bit of discomfort into travel. Not enough discomfort that one is miserable but just enough to focus attention. I know, for myself, that when I'm in familiar surroundings, whether at home or away, I am often on autopilot. Autopilot will get me through situations that I have been through a million times before but, because attention is not focused, it isn't conducive to learning.

To say it another way, allowing myself the opportunity to be a little uncomfortable when I travel focuses my attention, like a little pebble in my shoe. Because of the uniqueness of interacting with local people in new places I have to pay attention, and learning, as my teachers always used to tell me, only happens when I am paying attention.

I would be the first to admit that putting up with even this moderate discomfort would not be worth it if there was no return on the investment. Needless to say, I believe there is a great return on the time, focus and energy invested in this kind of traveling. When I start to live within a culture, even a little bit, around the edges, I start to understand the mechanisms of that new culture, and I also begin to realize that there are more ways than just those of my home culture to do things, and maybe even sometimes they are as good or better.

When, while traveling, I open myself up to the people around me I give them and myself the chance to experience something different, and though this isn't always pleasant, sometimes, actually many times in my experience, I get the chance to see helpfulness, friendship and human compassion, and that definitely makes it worthwhile.

Traveling in this style, with more focused attention, opens the way for me to observe and question myself more than in my everyday, more predictable life. I find myself questioning why some interactions make me irritable, why I'm uncomfortable in other situations, and why my mind fights acceptance of the way things are where I am. All of these situations help me to better understand who I am and why I am the way I am, and these understandings, especially when they are as conscious as they are when I travel, never fail to help me grow as a person.

This trip, for reasons that I do not yet understand, has motivated me to think about these ideas in more detail than I ever have before and since, for me, this was an important part of my trip I thought I would share them with those of you who have been faithful readers. I hope you will feel free to comment on this or anything else I've gotten on my soapbox about in the past three months if the mood strikes you.

Next, in a few days, my impressions of India and Nepal.