There is no shame in traveling for the sheer fun of it
“I came to the conclusion that some more ascetic reason than mere enjoyment should be found if one wishes to travel in peace: to do things for fun smacks of levity, immorality almost, in our utilitarian world. And though personally I think the world is wrong, and I know that in my heart of hearts that it is a most excellent reason to do things merely because one likes the doing of them, I would advise all those who wish to see unwrinkled brows in passport offices to start out ready labeled as entomologists, anthropologists, or whatever -ology they think suitable and propitious. But as this book is intended for the Public, and is therefore necessarily truthful, I must admit that for my own part I traveled single-mindedly for fun.”
–Freya Stark, The Valleys of the Assassins
October 19th, 2011 at 3:13 am
A point easily forgotten as you rush to get a photo at each attraction and try to rough-it it. It doesn’t get more basic than just doing what’s fun.
October 26th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
I hesitate to say that I travel for the fun of it, but that is pretty much what it is.
I grew up with the Saturday movie serials, the adventure stories that Steven Spielberg drew on in fashioning the Indiana Jones stories. As a little boy with no adult supervision I assumed that was what the world would be like, but it wasn’t, until I discovered travel.
It is the common sin of travel writers to self-romanticize, but the wonderful thing about travel is that, if you have done it well, you don’t have to make things up. It really was an adventure. Not like Indy’s, perhaps, but good enough for we little boys, now grown up.