Travelers risk discomfort for the thrill of a new perspective

“Many travelers seek out this high. We seek out what is different from what we behold in our daily lives, whether it is language, fashion, standards of behavior, architecture, climate, or animal species, because beholding what is different has the quality of being unreal. If our brains resist the realness of something, but this thing is before our eyes, we’re accompanied by little sparks of excitement just by moving through the world. While tourists spend their time away from home seeking our the comforts of home, travelers risk — even cultivate — discomfort, because what they want is the thrill of a new perspective.”
–Alden Jones, The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler’s Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia (2013)