Why we travel?
Outline
- Your travels
- Why travel?
- Why travel top 10
- Why should young people travel?
- Why don't Americans travel?
- Self-imposed Isolation
- Long way Round / Long Way Down review
- A geographer's perspective
Your travels
Describe where you have traveled and what brought you to these places. What was the motivation for the trips?
As a child, my family used to road trip to Florida nearly every summer to visit my grandparents. I think this is when my love of travel started. We may not have gone to many places when I was young, but I always appreciated the trips to see family, or the small side trips my parents took us on around Virginia and North Carolina. My first real travel experience was when I was eighteen. I went to Puerto Rico with my oldest sister. We didn’t do much planning, and we clashed on activities because of our ten-year age gap. I wanted to go to nightclubs and party while she preferred the smaller bars and quiet hangouts. We did visit the bioluminescent lagoon in the municipality of Fajardo, and that was a magical experience. My next travels within the United States were mostly for the military.
I joined the Air Force when I was 21, and went to San Antonio, Texas for basic training. From there, I lived in Monterey, California for about nine months for training, and then San Angelo, Texas for around six months for more follow-on training. I was stationed in San Antonio, while my now husband was stationed in Omaha, Nebraska. We typically drove to Dallas to see each other about once a month. We took our first vacation together to visit our parents in Virginia and West Virginia. We visited Washington D.C. and developed a love for road tripping.
We have gone on road trips east and west from Omaha, to both coasts. I think we have visited or driven through nearly every state together. We like to camp along the way to save a little money, and we really love to visit National parks around the country (we even have the passport and I love to get it stamped!). The few states I’ve never visited are the gulf states- Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, and I don’t think I’ve been to Vermont. We drove up through Canada and visited Toronto a few years ago, and came back down into Michigan to visit my twin.
Our first major vacation was in the summer of 2016 when we both left the Air Force. We flew into Madrid, Spain, and I found out I am not a good long-distance flyer! While in Europe, we visited many cities including Barcelona, Valencia, Monte Carlo, Venice, Naples, and Rome along with day trips to some smaller cities. In 2017 I visited London with UNO. We walked around the city daily, took the buses and the underground- which was one of the best subway systems I’ve ever used (previous experience in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington D.C.) One major highlight of that trip was visiting the Harry Potter Studio!
Why travel?
How does Huberman (Why Travel?) explain to her friends in Maine why she travels? Comment on some of the experiences she describes, and what she sees as the ultimate reason for travel.
Amy Huberman’s Why Travel? is an article that describes the feeling of travelling as a person who is accustomed to a certain way of life. While it is easy to see differences on the surface- for instance, the way Huberman describes how common littering is in India- she had difficulty letting go of the norms she grew up with (as in, don’t litter, throw your bottle away in a trash can.) She explained that exposure to new cultures is going to happen by simply being in a new place, but the unexpected is where you learn about your lens of the world. In the United States, persons accused are innocent until proven guilty and are afforded certain rights. It was clear that she did not see the same treatment of a suspect while in India. Here she realizes that her upbringing in the U.S. has shaped her world view, as she travels with her assumptions and unconscious biases. Huberman is humbled by her world travels, and she reflects on her experience and appreciates the opportunity to make changes to her lens in order to view the world differently.
Why travel top ten
From the list of ten reasons, pick three that would be the most important to you and explain why.
The top three reasons to travel that are important to me are:
1. It makes you more confident and independent- I drove from Omaha to California in June of 2019, and I must say it was one of the most liberating experiences of my life so far. I recommend travelling alone to anyone! I was nervous at times, but I never felt unsafe and overall it was a very satisfying experience. I stopped along the road whenever I wanted, I took detours to Salt Lake City, Utah and Lake Tahoe, California. I camped in Lake Tahoe and I swear I saw a bear in the campground! Well, bears live in the woods, after all.
2. It teaches you about yourself- This relates directly to number one. I have a lot of anxiety about travelling, but I leaned that I am very capable of travelling in a fun and exciting way. Travelling in the United States is fairly easy, because everywhere I venture people speak English and the food is always fairly familiar.
3. It teaches you about the world- I really enjoyed Amy Huberman’s article Why Travel? While I’ve only traveled to a few countries outside of the United States, most of those countries were in Europe and they all had a sense of familiarity. Public transit, sit-down restaurants, police patrols, bars, nightclubs, museums, markets. Many people I encountered in Spain, France, and Italy spoke English, but I made the attempt with please and thank you. I found that people were, for the most part, very friendly if you were friendly. I hope that all of my travels in the future are this way, but I have to realize that there are things to learn and know about a country before visiting. I think this class will help me learn more about the world by challenging my assumptions about
Why should young people travel?
Comment on Peterson's arguments for why young people should travel. What are the six reasons and can you think of more?
A very large barrier to young people traveling is money. When I was young, I was interested in traveling out of the country, but we didn’t have a lot of money for that. I know I would have benefitted from new experiences, and it would have helped me build more confidence. Learning about other cultures is very important, and one excellent way to learn is through immersion. However, learning a foreign language isn’t as highly emphasized in grade school as it should be. Learning the language is useful for travel, and helps you learn more about the culture and people of the country you are visitng.
Why don't Americans travel?
What are some reasons why Americans don't travel.
The American work culture is a major obstacle to travel. When I was in the military, I got 30 days of paid leave a year, but even then, it was extremely difficult to get leave approved for more than two weeks at one time. If you were able to take the time, money is the next key ingredient to traveling. Most people aren’t going to stay in lavish hotels or eat at five-star restaurants, but the time and preparation it takes to travel is also costly. People are also used to their way of life, so travelling to a foreign country as an American may be a literal culture shock if there was no research done before had. Not only that, but the United States has so much natural beauty and many metropolitan cities that you have completely different experiences when you visit Wall Drug in South Dakota versus San Francisco in California.
Self-imposed
Isolation?
Each of us lives in varying degrees of isolation from the rest of the world. This isolation is both happenstance and self-imposed. If we are born in an isolated part of the world with few opportunities to travel, we will likely lead an isolated existence. Self-imposed isolation occurs when have many opportunities to see other parts of the world but choose to spend our time and resources in one tiny area. We isolate ourselves because we are afraid or uncomfortable in other parts of the world.
Describe the lives of some people you know and how they engage in self-imposed isolation.
When I was in high school, we had neighbors who always went to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for their summer vacation. While it was fun to go and camp with other families, these neighbors never seemed to have any interest in visiting other parts of the state, or other states. I’ve seen this type of isolation with people who own cabins. The maintenance of the cabin tends to be the reason why they tend not to visit other places. A lot of the time, people can’t afford to travel far. I’ve been privileged enough to do some travelling while in the military and after with my husband, and I realize that isn’t the case for many people.
Passports
Maps of passport ownership in US by state have been used in different ways. Do a Google Image search and include one of these maps below. Discuss the distribution. What does passport ownership indicate?
Passport ownership seems to be high in states with large populations, like California and New York. This makes sense, more people means there would be high chances of people having a passport. States in the Midwest have lower passport ownership. This may be due to self-imposed isolation, or lower income. It is costly to apply for a passport in the United States, and that itself could be a barrier for many people.
Submitted by Victoria Follin on 26 January 2020.