Why travel? It's sinking in

Before we left on our sabbatical year, we asked our selves ‘why travel?’ It may seem like an obvious choice, but was it? Obviously there are many ways to spend time well. So why travel? Well, for instance to feel free. To create different situations. To slow down time and get taken in. Maybe even get taken in to a degree to which we can - again - fall in love with life or rediscover youthful enthusiasm. To slow down long enough to lose and find. To open our eyes and hearts to this changing world, hoping to get a better understanding. To dream. To remember what’s important to us. And - not to forget - to come home again.

This last week, the intensity of our travels so far suddenly started to sink in. So many things happened, some of which were on our list. We’ve just arrived in the last quarter of our year. For these upcoming months we’ve decided to - again - change our perspective. Before we were travelling around South America and Asia; experiencing countries and places unknown to us. Now we started cycling Europe; which is near home and - for many parts and in many ways - well known. We’ve decided to finish near home - without coming home just yet - taking time to travel with fewer impulses, hopefully allowing us to think and plan ahead. Travelling was - is - very much about being in the here and now. Planning and thinking ahead don’t really match travelling. But now - after one week of cycling - we find our selves looking back and forth.

As our perspectives change, different things happen. I got lost for no reason whatsoever; simply not paying attention. The second time I couldn’t remember where we parked; never happened before. The past nine months we were very much in the now; a mixed state of relaxation and constant alertness. Back ‘home’ in Europe we completely let go of that alertness. Sometimes we feel much more like tourists and way less like travellers. Plus, we’re no longer leaving assumptions at home, which suits travelling. These days, we’re actually putting our assumptions on the table; discussing them for planning purposes. Very different yet again very exciting times. Time in which the intensity of the last nine months has truckloads of room to sink in.

Have you ever wondered what makes travelling so intense? Why is it like that? How is it different? I feel it has a lot to do with ‘being moved’ (I’m not talking about transportation). Highest and lowest moments arrive easily when travelling - elevated or unbalanced - in comparison to relative standstill. Travelling often moves, but rarely because of what is written in the travel guide. To me it’s about what we experience, think and feel at the same time. It’s the little things, in the little places, or in the people we meet. It’s in the stories that don’t come up immediately after you come home.
Travelling is also intense because it takes something like receptivity. Alain de Botton wrote about this in his ‘Art of Travel’. It’s almost impossible to enjoy travelling when having rigid ideas. It takes flexibility and openness to move from the familiar to the unfamiliar. That state of mind - opening up, leaving comfort-zones - can be stressful and tiring. But it also enhances flexibility, it certainly kills prejudice, and it seems to make things lighter. Nevertheless some places we visited turned our complete belief system upside down and back up again. That calls for receptivity and is what you might call intense. To put it simple and mildly, I think travelling just might be one of the most direct ways to keep our mind mobile and awake.

It’s also about exposure to difference. The sort of exposure that opens up and makes people more creative and innovative. As I’m now looking forward to my - upcoming - professional life, I realize this is a big issue for companies, governments and professionals. How to be creative and innovative? How to open up to positive change? People, careers, organizations - or even civilizations - move forward through creativity and innovativeness. Comparable to travelling - to them - it is evenly important to be receptive. To be exposed to different stories and ideas, other ways of approaching issues and unknown sources of inspiration. To me, this is what an increasingly international work force can offer. This - receptivity and exposure - is why interculturality holds so much value. It’s what travelling gave us.

Evening out the intensity and all we got out of our travels, we’re happy to travel relatively known grounds for a little while. Nothing wrong with a little less impulse and intensity for now. Time to let it sink in and to take some small steps in between. Time to turn ideas into plans and plans into reality. A reality I'd want to be moving, mobile and awake.

Let it sink in for a little while - www.coachcultures.org