Why travel?

Angels Landing from the valley floor,
Zion National Park, Utah, USA

To people who haven't been bitten by the travel bug, the desire to fly, drive, walk or sit on a train for hours just to go look at streets, buildings, trees and people in a different city, state or country can seem baffling. Why go all that distance to spend time outside your comfort zone, around people you may not be able to understand, in a place where it may not be safe to drink the water or eat certain types of food and where you're not unlikely to get lost at least once a day? Why sit on a rattling bus overnight, or trek through bug-infested forests up to altitudes that make you light-headed? Why bother with all the hassle and headaches of traveling, when you could stay comfortably at home?

If you asked 50 travel junkies those questions, you'd likely get 50 different answers, but I'd be willing to bet that most of them wouldn't be all that different from mine, at least in spirit: Because, in getting lost, you'll stumble over people and experiences you didn't know were missing from your life. Because finding a way to communicate with people who live a world away from where you grew up shows you just how how much you have in common, despite the differences in your lifestyles and looks - and because those differences can open your eyes to new ways of doing things, or make you better appreciate your own life. Because beauty - in architecture, in nature, in people - is worth seeking out. And because nothing is more exhilarating than stepping over the edge of your comfort zone and free-falling into as-yet unknown experiences.

Les arènes: Inside the Roman amphitheatre,
Arles, France.

Travel can be terrifying. If you venture away from home often enough, there will inevitably be moments when you want nothing more than to be back where things are simple and figuring out how to interact with the people around you without offending anyone or making a mockery of yourself doesn't take every ounce of brainpower you have. You will likely get sick or hurt at inopportune moments, be scorned by locals who think you should have stayed at your home and well away from theirs, and wonder, once you're past the point of no return on some adventurous outing that required you to sign away the operator's liability for your life, what the hell you were thinking.

Those moments, however, are few and far between and almost always make you laugh at some point down the line. Most of the time, travel is wonderful. You can admire the colors in a national park and wonder just how long it took for such beauty to be carved out of the earth. You can stand at the Pont du Gard or the Roman amphitheatre in Arles and marvel at how such huge constructs have stood for so long without mortar. You can take a walk or a hike and wonder about the thousands of other feet that have been there - who they belonged to, what those people saw, their reasons for coming. You can exchange a smile with someone who was raised in a culture radically different from yours and treasure a brief conversation that you'll never forget. Or you can sit, at a café, on a park bench, on a curb, and watch the world go by, with all its similarities to and differences from the world you know.

Looking back down the path to Inis Mór's
Dún Aonghasa, toward the Irish Sea.

As long as you mind your manners and respect local customs, there's no wrong way to travel. Whatever it is that you're looking for, whatever your reasons for going, as long as you're satisfied with what you see, do and experience, you're traveling the "right" way. For some, that "right" way means setting out on an epic adventure without an end date, while for others it's a long weekend close to home or a week a short flight away.

Travel is personal, with a lot of self-discovery wrapped up in any trip, but whether you travel alone, with friends or with a group, it's also something to be shared. Each new memory you make expands your view of the world and every experience you have can be helpful to the people around you, those you already know and those you have yet to meet.

So, why travel? Pick a reason, there are hundreds. I think a more difficult question to answer is "Why not travel?" I can't think of a single answer that isn't outweighed by the benefits of travel and the discoveries it yields. Can you?

Birth of a Wandering Student

I've been a wanderer for longer than I've been a student, officially-speaking. Exploring new places is something my parents love to do and I grew up doing it with them, traipsing throughout the continental United States, gradually venturing a little further out - British Columbia, Baja, Hawai'i, Alberta, Alaska. By the time I started school, the number of national parks I'd hiked in rivaled the number of kids in my kindergarten class.

The summer I was 15, we went to Europe and my conception of the world was blown wide open. There were so many things to see, and so many people! I couldn't absorb it all fast enough; not the sights, the sounds, the smells and certainly not the accented and sometimes broken conversations with people who lived in fascinating places I'd only read about. Every time we got on a train to go somewhere new, I was both excited about what we'd see next and frustrated that I hadn't seen nearly enough of the place we'd just been.

I kept traveling as a teenager: a partial summer at Georgetown University at 16 was my first real exposure to the east coast and to the fact that more than the weather changes as you move throughout the United States. I was lucky enough to attend a high school where, at 17, I was able to take a two-week trip through France, sponsored by my French teacher. We explored the Roman ruins of Nice, the châteaux of the Loire, the beaches and the cemetery at Normandy, Mont St-Michel, Monet's gardens at Giverny and, of course, Paris. I fell even more deeply in love with France - the language, the architecture, the art, the history - and vowed I'd find a chance to go back.

That chance came my junior year of college. Thanks to credits from the numerous AP exams I'd taken in high school and The George Washington University's (GW's) desire to see its students spend time outside the country, I had enough leeway in my schedule to study abroad for a full year and still graduate on time with a double major in International Affairs and French Language & Literature, as well as a minor in music.

I thought about going to West Africa, where I could use my French, learn a local dialect and explore a completely different part of the world, but decided I wanted to study somewhere I could blend in and really feel like a part of the local culture. I contemplated Paris, at that point my favorite city in the world, but every program I looked at involved at least some courses in English, and I didn't want to be an ex-pat, I wanted to try my hand at being French. Finally, I found a small folder in GW's study abroad office on a program in Aix-en-Provence that taught only in French and required its students to sign a contract stating that they would speak French exclusively during their time there. It was exactly what I had been looking for.

My experience at the American University Center of Provence was my first chance to combine travel and traditional education (rather than the discoveries that are a natural by-product of traveling), and I couldn't get enough. Studying French culture from French professors, not to mention living with a French host family, helped me to assimilate. Studying French literature, archeology, art, history and film with Cézanne's studio, Roman fountains and Etruscan ruins mere minutes away, in what was once a medieval walled city, was bliss.

Early on in my time at AUCP, fall 2005.

Academics were the focus of my time in Aix but, with the generous vacations on the French calendar, I also had time to travel. I spent time in Florence, Paris, London, Vienna and Marseille with other students in the program who had become fast friends. When my parents came to visit, we explored central- and southwestern France and I was thrilled to give them a near-native tour of my temporary home.

I can't pinpoint the moment, but sometime during that year the travel bug, trailing me all my life, caught up with me in earnest and I was hooked. At the same time, I became a culture junkie: when the travel bug pulled me somewhere new, I wanted to know the roots of the place and the people who lived there. What made them who they were? How did their language influence the way they lived and vice versa? What were their views on traveling? What tone did their literature have, what subjects did it address and why? How did they perceive the world? How did they perceive me, for that matter?

And so, somewhere between the national parks of the western U.S. and the cobblestone streets of western Europe, this wandering student was born. Although I've been traveling all my life, my journey's still in its infancy. Whether you're in a similar phase of your own odyssey, are in the middle of it or have yet to begin, we can learn a lot by sharing experiences; won't you join me?