I am, therefore I travel.

What a great question. For as long as I can remember I have had a burning desire to see the world. I don't know where this comes from, as my parents and sister were all very content to spend all vacations visiting relatives. I enjoy visiting family to a point, but I don't feel obligated to spend all of my free time doing it. I have no friends or relatives who share this passion, so I rely on you Fodies as my lifeline for talking travel with me.

The best answer I can give is this: For me it is an inborn inclination, sort of like being right handed. It's a part of who I am. It's the greatest thrill to plan a trip, dream about it for months, then watch it all come to life. As soon as the trip is over, I go through my stage of mourning the passing of that trip, then I move on to plan the next one. I also get that same sense of excitement from reading this board and helping others plan thier trips, as you all have helped me. I appreciate you all more than I can say.

I travel because it is such a learning experience for me and I love the thrill of being a part of a culture other than my own, planning my trip, experiencing things I never would at home.

When I am in distant locations I feel like the real me as surfaced and this is what I'm all about.

It makes me happy and I am obsessed with traveling. Unfortunately, my wallet can't compete with my desire to spend a good portion of my life traveling.

Mark Twain says it best :

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."

Because, travel is fatal to predudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness. Broad wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetation in one little corner of the earth all oné's lifetime...Mark Twain.
I wish I could, and all the decent posters here could afford to travel more.

I was prepared to be all introspective but so many have done a better job than I ever could.

So, the best reason I could think of at the moment is that it beats staying at home, mowing the lawn. ;)

"To those who understand, no explanation is necessary. And to those who don't...no explanation will suffice." I have tried to impress upon many friends how great travel is to no avail. Too foreign, too long a flight, etc., etc. I have dreamed of travel since I was 16 (probably got that from my Dad) but didn't have a chance until my 40s. There is hardly any place I wouldn't go. I travel for the different cultures and magnificent sites. Living in SoCal where everything is so "new" I was even in awe of the US East Coast. I can't believe I was so disinterested in history in school. And, I am a tourist in my local museums or any other site-seeing place. I love being a tourist and a traveler. I now have my youngest son hooked on travel :-)

I travel because it brings my mundane life excitement, enjoyment, enrichment and fulfills a wanderlust I have always had. Must have been a gypsy before. I am stuck in a small town in No. Calif. due to a divorce. I NEED to get out. I have always loved to go go go. I am Leaving on Friday (2 days!!) for Italy for a two week + vcation with beautiful children & my incredible Mother who have never seen Italy before. I am the planner and guide to open their eyes as mine have been before. So why do I travel? Because I have to. Without it I would be in my own prison!

I agree with PM. I spend alot of my free time planning my holidays (vacations). I travel at home in the U.K and overseas. In the next 9 months i have 4 breaks already booked, Slovakia, Cyprus, Canada(Toronto) and Florida (I'm over 30 and have a 4yr old what better excuse!) and i will probably plan the next overseas one in a couple of months, as well as one or two weekends away in the U.K. Sometimes the time away is stressful, busy and not really much different from home, but i get to meet people and see things i would never have if i stayed in my own town. Sometimes i just want to lay on a beach and forget everything (not always easy with a 4yr old!) The over riding factor though is the desire to go, and i am not even that keen on flying!! In short I love to travel and se the world and its people and cultures.

I love to find what is similar and what is different about people in different times and places. I love to look at the world and at my life through the different lenses shaped by distance and language and culture. I love to visit places I have always heard of and see how the reality compares with my fantasy.

Sometimes I want to return to the same places again and again because of feelings they instill in me. The peace and the sense of the vastness of the universe I get on the flats of Cape Cod Bay in Brewster at low tide. The thrill and the feeling of home which coexist for me in New York City. The excitement of the city and the sound of the French language all around me in Paris.

With each new view from a different place, from a different day, comes a new layer of understanding.

Travel = continued education course.

cigale,
I really like that quote, but having been a lurker and sometimes poster on this site for some time now, I'm not sure I agree with it.

Because there's no Pantheon in Seattle.

Travel is interesting and entertaining.

It's fun to fish for quotes. I like this one.

<i>Comes over one an absolute necessity to move. And what is more, to move in some particular direction. A double necessity then: to get on the move, and to know whither. </i> - D. H. Lawrence

Capo, is too. Our spare room has little shrines to all our god friends - flattened flowers from Fiji in frames, formerly functional French Francs, folded folios from Firenze - and that's just the &quot;F&quot; section...

Travel is an urge I was born with. It's very deep and quite simple.

What a great thread! No wonder I'm addicted to this board...YOU understand.

Because gardyloo gave us such a great quote, I thought I'd throw in one too:

&quot;There is never any ending to Paris. Paris was always worth it and you reeived return for whatever you brought to it...&quot; Ernest Hemingway

Job816 really hit a nerve for me when he talked about travel as putting you in touch with past lives...

Once, when I was living in Malaysia, I went back to one of my past lives...

At that time, I thought it was in Eastern Europe (since that's where my current ansestors were from), but after going to Spain, I &quot;know&quot; I had lived there once before...

As for museums, whenever I see great art, it reminds me of a quote I just read in Pico Iyer's Sun After Dark (highly recommend this for fellow travellers) about great art being the true religion...

I live in Seattle, which is a place I love to come back to (which to me is important), but also have so many places I love to go for so many reasons touched upon here.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and insights...

I know, beachbum, OI wish it were true but as Goethe said, &quot;don't treat peopls as they are but as they should be. &quot;

I enter so many contests for trips to places, (sigh) hoping one day...

Growing up, I have always envied my friends who went on vacations. Our family is very modest, we rarely took far-flung vacations. Oh... the anticipation, the stories afterwards, the pictures, the momentos ... everything sounded so enticing.

Now that I'm a bit older, and I can afford my own travel, I think the experience of being removed from your own comfort zone and home, be somewhere else new ... and see the world from completely different eyes truly enlighten and renew me every time.

Also, a part of me still tries to figure out what I want, and who I am... does that make sense? And I sort of hope to figure some of those out through travelling...

cos its there ???