The Purpose of Travel

When I travel, friends ask what I plan to do there. It’s the same whether it’s somewhere familiar or foreign. It’s a fair question. They wish to know the purpose of my actions. Yet, I find myself stumped to give an answer on most occasions.

I’d brood over the question wondering what is an acceptable answer. We will stare at each other wondering why this is treated as a loaded question. After much thought, I'll reply with matter-of-fact answers such as eating, reading, and walking. 

They are the literal actions I will commit to. I could’ve added sleeping, shitting, and breathing. But I might’ve come off as a trite smartass. 

Nevertheless, it’s a good question to ponder. What is the purpose of travel? Specifically, what is the purpose of travel for me? 

Is it to visit sites? Sometimes, that is accurate. Whether it’s a concentration camp, an architectural structure, or a market, I am visiting a site. 

Eating is a staple. Exploring the local cuisine, as well as nonlocal cuisine, is a core experience. Travel is about experiencing culture. How could food not be a part of that? 

This isn’t limited to the “most authentic” food of a culture. I have a different idea of authenticity. My idea of authenticity is eating Tikka Masala in London, not shepherd’s pie or fish and chips. Yes, drinking Guinness in Dublin is also authentic. But that’s because that’s what the Irish do every day. 

Going to a Taco Bell in the U.S. is probably an authentic experience. From what I hear most Americans say, it seems like quite the place. Authentic is what’s closest to the near mundane everyday of those who live there. If I want a traditional dish the kings and queens ate, I’m seeking for historic. 

Core to actions like eating and visiting sites is to look at people. Better yet, to get a whiff of humanity. That is my purpose for travel.  

It’s about exploring how people live. To sit and watch. To walk through the city, sit in a coffee shop in various neighbourhoods and experience the flow of people. To feel the warmth of people bustling about and the drone of speech wash over me. 

To walk on the narrow streets in neighbourhoods designed for cars. But to walk through it one the less to see how the houses look in each place and compare it to my memories of others gone by. 

That’s the point. It’s about experiencing my interpretation of what Werner Herzog calls the Ecstatic Truth. It’s the truth that I observe. There is no objectivity here other than my own. 

If the Vancouver I walk through feels lackadaisical, irresponsible, and filled with nice people then it is. If the Toronto I experience feels aggressive, guarded, and penny-pinching, then it is. 

Others can disagree and it’s on me to work hard to not care. Their opinion shouldn’t change what I think is true. What is true about a place is dependent on my experience. This makes truth relative. But that’s what travel is. 

Everyone accumulated a different set of experiences. This forms our relative reality that will only become more complex with time. We feed the supercomputer in our head with more data as we refine our opinions from observations over the years. Of course, these observations will be static. But the tapestry of static observations will contort in the dynamism of life. 

The Hong Kong I know from the 1990s was different from the Hong Kong of the 2010s. Not only because the city changed but I changed as well. That creates a complex reference point that can’t hold any objectivity. There can only be this relativity in experience and that is travel. 

Travel is the constant accumulation of relative truths. It’s to experience what we call the human experience by observing the world around us. It’s one type of curiosity fulfilled.