Bothering to travel

While reading The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton I came across this quote from a poem by French 18th century poet Charles Baudelaire:

Life is a hospital where every patient is obsessed by the desire of changing beds. One would like to suffer opposite the stove, another is sure he would get well beside the window.

Lots of people say they like to travel, to see the world, to go places and do things, and I’m one of them, but this book and this quote got me asking; why?

I used to know someone who said she didn’t like to travel, that she didn’t feel the need. That she could see all the sights from the comfort of her own living room with a computer and a cup of tea.

‘Anything you want to travel for I can find closer to home’.

The book has a similar story about a chap in the 18 or 17 hundreds who wants to visit London, but his experience with traveling up to that point has been poor. He goes and he holidays, but it’s devilishly hot, there are mosquitoes, uncivilised wildlife, and he ends up cutting all of his trips short. But he decides after considerable deliberation, that this time, he’ll go.

He gets his belongings, makes his way to the train station, and finds he has a few hours to spare. He sits himself down in a pub that is the most London-like; low light, wooden oak bars, and patrons wearing tweed, that kind of thing. He orders a pint of beer, something roasted, and listens to the conversations of the English speakers around him. He finally feels the excited anticipation he was looking for before the trip.

But then he remembers, the train ride lasts many hours before he gets to the boat, and the crossing is many hours longer still. When he gets to London he has somewhere to stay but between the port and his room waits a labyrinth of streets and strangers. And even when settled, in order to see the famed sites or explore the history he has read so much about, he needs to navigate the city and converse in his non-native English, and suffer the quiet distaste English people have for the French.

Having enjoyed the pub and its London atmosphere for a few hours he takes the next train home feeling satisfied he has experienced what he was hoping for from London life while he can read more about the museums and their contents later.

I was talking to my therapist about my travel plans during my time off. I’ve gotten lots of good and thoughtful recommendations for where I should go from friends, but most are about seeing the sites or eating food.

I don’t usually like to travel that much, I like to go to new places and to live there. Holidays or stints in interesting places haven’t usually been my thing unless it’s just for a vacation to specifically do nothing but recharge. I like to live somewhere new and experience it, and that takes time. But with my head where it’s at now, I don’t know what would be best.

Of course I don’t agree with the Frenchman in that story either, I know the power of being in a different place, breathing different air, and removing yourself from everything you thought you knew so you can see something completely different. Heck when I visit London myself from Amsterdam I’m always surprised by the energy it gives me. I got the same when I visited New York, and it was a whole different feeling all together in snowy Toronto or the oppressively hot Middle East. But I can’t help thinking I’m not chasing a feeling.

I’ll take all of my thoughts and struggles with me where ever I am. So I need to choose somewhere that’s going to help with that somehow. Where I can be alone, but where I can be around people. Where I’m not isolated, but where I can be secluded. Closer to the radiator? Closer to the kitchen? Where should I place my hospital bed?

- Rhys