The learnings from travel and some more…

As we travel more and more my mind has been straying towards a question , and its a question that i have been thinking about for sometime now- why do we really travel? What do we seek from it?

I understand in the past few years, its the most overrated word but does travel make us a better person? If yes, then why is it over rated?

I think it is easy to define travellers in few categories, one who take those agent tours, I don’t understand them and may be i never will.

Then there are some of us- chasing sunsets, climbing mountains, running up a lighthouse, screaming our lungs while jumping off the mountains, or may be sitting in the middle of a secluded beach reading a book, or in the midst of a dusty cavernous road in the mountain just sit still and listen to the music we love.

I understand the second set of people a little more than others may be, but what drives each of us could be completely different.

But over the years I have felt that travel does make us better human beings. Because when you travel you will somehow end up meeting a stranger who will end up helping you, something that you weren’t expecting at all.

Like a family i met in the train, they dropped me from Pathankot to upper Dharamkot in their car. Or a man that we met who dropped us from Les Houche to Chamonix in his car because we had missed the bus. Or a stranger in Wolfsburg who drew me a map on my note book to find my way in Berlin. Its these unexpected generosity that makes me believe that there is so much to learn from people and bring it back to our daily lives.

A journey also allows us the time to reflect on our lives. To quietly think about what has happened and what we are willing to change when we go back. It is always a difficult process to imbibe the notes that we bring from the hills or sand filled jeans but going back to the notes always helps.

I remember i sat there still in a Decathlon camping chair in the hills over looking the mountain with trees and suddenly a wave of clouds kissed past all of us. Those twenty minutes were best spent simply gazing at nature and writing.

And finally the one thing that travel has helped me is to be social. To smile more, to laugh more, to listen to varied stories, join conversations with strangers and stock a lot of knowledge on India. I have always come back knowing more, reading more from my solo trips, but that shouldn’t undermine the group trips either.

Traveling with friends either makes you come closer to them and be far better friends or it makes you take a step away from them. I have had both and i am quite glad for that.

But in all this, one surely can’t get over the joy of being in a new place, planning a new trip over months, anxiously waiting for visa or merely counting days before the journey. As a friend mentioned a few days back, we might die poor but we have lived well.

And cheers to that!