Should we change the way we travel?
Nowadays, pretty much anyone of sound mind will agree that our lifestyle is overall pretty trash. But, what about the way we travel?
Yup, it is what triggered me over the last few years. What is the point of having a “sustainable” lifestyle if we give up on those cherished values abroad when no one is looking at us?
And no, riding a bicycle and eating local products after a long 20-hour flight to Cuba doesn’t make your journey sustainable. That is just a bit less bad.
Then, dear readers, can we still travel without having some eco-terrorist yelling at you under each holiday post you published? However, do not cry yet, young traveller in the making. The world is neither all black nor white.
Do we genuinely need to travel?
However, before tackling this HUGE problem, do we really need to travel?
Yeah, buddy, you hear me right. If the answer was no, I could wrap this article, and you could return to more interesting things, like the trash your wife keeps asking you to take out. Anyway, let’s get back to our main topic.
As a human being, travelling has been essential during most of our existence. However, this need was before different. Indeed, there are rare similarities between your grandfather hundreds of years ago travelling to seek food and a safe environment and you travelling to post another picture on Instagram that few people genuinely care about.
Why do we need to travel nowadays?
Have you ever noticed how people who have travelled talk and behave differently? If you don’t, look again (PS: we are talking about travel, not holidays).
When you travel and voluntarily immerse in foreign culture, many things happen:
- The world opens in front of you. The reality you have been taking for granted for years collapses to reveal a wider and further horizon ligne.
- You start to realise that you might not need many material things.
Get Ulysse’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
- You develop many skills, including self-confidence, communication, self-ability, patience, as well as many more.
- You discover a lot about yourself, what makes you happy and sad, what kind of people you want around you, and the ones you want to avoid.
- You realise that every action and consumption behaviour in your home country impacts somewhere else.
- And so on.
Seems enough?
The person who went to travel came back as a different person.
To foster a durable change in the way we travel, I believe it is crucial to change people’s mindsets and visions so the industry will follow.
Therefore, what is better than doing the experience yourself to be convinced?
By travelling differently, we are not just experiencing a temporary change, but we grow from the inside. We earn knowledge to obtain a better understanding of today’s complex world.
Write your own odyssey and change the way you travel.
The first step you make while travelling is the beginning of your own journey. Since then, you will come back as a different person.
I am not a fool enough to believe that we will stop to travel overnight. However, people’s mindsets and visions can evolve, and travel is a mandatory step in this quest.
We need to travel to gain experience about ourselves and the impact of our actions. The theory is useful but will never replace the experience. Learn about the world and yourself, and be the change you want to see.
My change is about travel, and I believe we should change the way we do it.
Bon voyage!
Wander with purpose — Connect with heart.
Stay curious: https://www.slowsightsoul-slowtravelblog.com/
