Travel gives you the opportunity to examine your conscience

"As we travel, we can feel that something important is happening, that we are taking part in something of which we are at once both witnesses and creators, that there is a duty incumbent upon us, and that we are responsible for something. And in fact we are responsible for the road we are traveling. We often feel sure that we are walking or driving down a particular road just this once in our lives, and that we shall never return to it again, so we must no miss anything from this journey, we cannot overlook or lose anything, because we are going to give an account of it all, write a report, a story -- we are going to examine our conscience. And so, as we travel we concentrate, we focus our attention and sharpen our hearing. The road we are on is very important, because each step along it takes us nearer to an encounter with the Other, and that is exactly why we are there. Would we otherwise voluntarily expose ourselves to hardships and take on the risk of all sorts of discomfort and danger?"
--Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski, The Other (2008)