Five reasons why you will never get sick of travel

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This was published 6 years ago

Five reasons why you will never get sick of travel

By Ben Groundwater
Travel is exciting when you first start out, but you'll never get sick of it.

Travel is exciting when you first start out, but you'll never get sick of it. Credit: Matthew Micah Wright

"Do you ever get sick of travelling?"

That's a question I'm asked surprisingly often, although I guess it's reasonable – when the act of seeing the world becomes your job, when roaming the globe is a thing you do because you get paid for it, there's a chance it could feel like a chore.

And it's true, sometimes I do get sick of travelling. Though it's only the getting from one place to another that bothers me. I get sick of airports, I get sick of delayed flights, I get sick of waiting in security queues behind people who have to be reminded to remove each … individual … item … of jewellery they have hanging off them.

But sick of seeing new places, meeting new people, having new experiences? Never.

I will never get tired of travel. There will never be a point in my life where I don't stare up at a departures board in an airport and fantasise about all of the amazing destinations that people are flying to today. Honiara, Bangkok, Delhi, Denpasar, Santiago, Johannesburg, Shanghai … Even when I'm already going somewhere exciting, I'm jealous of the passengers who are travelling to others.

I want to go everywhere. I want to see everything. I want to spend every day of my life feeling that sense of adventure that travel brings, that excitement, that bewilderment, that wonder that I'm actually seeing the things I'm seeing, that they really do exist. It doesn't matter how often you travel or how many places you've been, that feeling should never go away.

Travel truly is the greatest privilege and the most amazing experience you can have.

You're reading this website, so you get that. You love to travel too. But still, it pays to remind yourself of the glory of this pursuit, of the value of spending money on experiences rather than things. Travel won't help you attain the traditional measures of success, the big house and the fancy car and the career with the frequent promotions, but it will change your life in more ways than you'll probably ever fully appreciate.

Will I ever get sick of that? No chance. That's why I'm dedicating this column to celebrating the glory, the beauty, and the excitement of the experience that has brought us all here in the first place.

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Travel is amazing. It changes you as a person. It magnifies your passions and diminishes your distastes. It reveals new depths to you. It strips you bare of pretense. It shows that you're capable of things you never thought possible, while revealing flaws that you'd probably rather ignore.

Travel is infinite possibilities. It's fate and chance and the path of your life thrown open to the karmic wheel of fortune. Every time you travel, every tiny decision you make could change everything. Take the train, or the bus. Talk to that person, or don't. Wander into that bar, or the next. Every step is a real-life choose-your-own-adventure that could irreversibly alter the person you are.

Travel is perspective. It's a way of realising that the problems that feel so real and important to you back home maybe don't mean so much in the grander scheme. It's also a way of realising that those physical things you desire, those gadgets and garments and possessions that impress your friends, maybe don't mean so much either.

Travel is endlessly surprising. It's not just the things you see, but the things you discover in yourself. It's the interests and obsessions that have lain dormant or undiscovered. You go on safari and all of a sudden you're a bird nerd. You go to Peru and now you can lecture people about the Moche. You go to the US and suddenly baseball seems interesting.

Travel is also a window into the world, into humanity, a revealer of truths both global and universal. The world doesn't seem like such a scary place once you've traversed it, once you've met people in Amritsar and Amsterdam, in Quebec City and Quetzaltenango, and come to realise that most of them want the same things: a decent job, a happy family, good health, and a sports team that wins.

The world is a huge place filled with differences and nuance, but at the same time it's small and predictable. You find people are friendly and welcoming wherever you go. They want to show off the best of their culture. They want to learn a little bit about yours. It's a beautiful thing.

Travel truly is the greatest privilege and the most amazing experience you can have. It's people, it's places, it's experiences, it's emotion, it's surprise, it's joy, and it's wonder. And it's also something I will never, ever get sick of.

I hope it's the same for you.

b.groundwater@fairfaxmedia.com.au

See also: Science proves travel is the secret to happiness

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