Travelers tend to fetishize an impossible notion of authenticity

“Once globalization and development have homogenized and sanitized the world – quite often for the best – it will no longer be possible for even the most self-indulgent and romantic among us to maintain the illusion that what we are doing is anything other than not-particularly-glorified tourism. If all the classic elements of backpacker stories have gradually become clichés, we might as well pause to acknowledge that they were surprisingly fun clichés while they lasted. … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (2)  | March 2, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

The Sacred, by Stephen Dunn

After the teacher asked if anyone had a sacred place and the students fidgeted and shrank

in their chairs, the most serious of them all said it was his car, being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he’d chosen, and others knew the truth had been spoken and began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming up, the car in motion, music filling it, and sometimes one other … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (1)  | February 23, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

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 … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Travelers risk discomfort for the thrill of a new perspective  | February 16, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

Easy day trips from Melbourne, Australia

Welcome to Melbourne

Melbourne, Australia has become my second home. Known for its café culture, four seasons in a day and city of all things sport, this special place has a lot to offer. In the city, there’s the hubbub of business, culture, life, eateries, endless laneways and riverfront activities. Just a … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Easy day trips from Melbourne, Australia  | February 14, 2015
Category: General, Notes from the collective travel mind, Travel Quote of the Day

Being “spiritual” is a way of being exuberant and alive

“The literature of mystical or spiritual experience continually reminds us that the origin of the word ‘spirit’ is closer to that of a high-spirited child, or a spirited horse, than it is to any kind of anaemic piety. First and foremost, ‘spiritual’ means bursting with exuberant life. There is also that strong sense of belonging: of being at home in a benign universe that is both loving and lovable. Wherever I am feels like ‘my … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Being “spiritual” is a way of being exuberant and alive  | February 9, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

Travel, at its best, is braided together with life itself

“All I know is that I want to live somewhere I’ll have to relearn everything: how to cross the street, how to order coffee, how to deal with people whose modes of thinking are utterly, intriguingly foreign to my own. I want to be uncomfortable, to be an outsider not just in my own mind but in the eyes of everyone who glances at my awkward, bumbling self. I want to figure it out all … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (2)  | February 2, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

The age of travel is not over

“There is a sniffy school of thought that promotes the idea that the age of travel is over, and that in 1946 when Evelyn Waugh published the juiciest selections from his travel books under the title When the Going Was Good, it was to be assumed that the going wasn’t good anymore. The book is very funny, but the thesis is faulty. I disagreed with it when I set off to see the world in … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on The age of travel is not over  | January 26, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

What you see on large news channels is not the only news

“What you see on large news channels is not the only truth, or even the only news. In fact, often it is the bad news. If you want to hear the good news, then travel. People are basically good and worth knowing, whatever the race or culture they hail from.” –Mike Spencer Bown, What I’ve Learned: The World’s Most Traveled Man, Esquire, October 25, 2013

Posted by | Comments (1)  | January 19, 2015
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

Travel has a way of reducing the traveler to essentials

“This emphasis upon travel as a test, as a loss that brings a gain of stature and certainty of self, suggests that the changes of character effected by travel are not so much the introduction of something new into the personality of the traveler as a revelation of something ineradicably present — perhaps courage, perdurance, the ability to endure pain, the persistence of skills and abilities even in a context of fatigue and danger. The … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Travel has a way of reducing the traveler to essentials  | December 29, 2014
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

“Authenticity” is often a pointless fetish for travelers

“Talking about the authentic is often what we do when we the overfed and privileged are discussing the fetish we cultivate for lives that look unchosen, for lives that are inherited, and thus seem to us unbeset by the anxiety of choosing one thing over something else. We juxtapose the inheritances that structure a traditional society with the sense of total arbitrariness we feel about our own lives, and we long to be relieved of … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (1)  | December 15, 2014
Category: Travel Quote of the Day