 Action/Adventure: October 16, 2024 Issue [#12784] |
This week: Traveling on Foot Edited by: NaNoNette  
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| "One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” ~ Henry Miller |
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Traveling on Foot
In the quote above, Henry Miller asserts that "a new way of seeing things" is the destination. I have never (knowingly) read anything by Henry Miller, but I fully agree with this statement.
In most cases, traveling is made up of two parts. There is time spent getting to a destination. Then there is the time spent at a destination. Some people find the time spent in transit to be a waste of time. If they could, they would choose beaming over flying.
Those who can find pleasure from the act of getting places will ultimately have the longer vacation. To me, my trip starts the moment I leave home. I've made the conscious cut between my day to day and stepped into a new reality.
"The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can." ~ Bilbo in Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.
I was recently able to travel to France for two weeks. In that time, I visited several cities, towns, villages, and a tidal island. Except for a couple of days when I visited a cousin and she drove me around in her car, I traveled everywhere by train, bus, and on foot.
Why would anyone travel on foot in the 21st century? Because that's the only way to really be immersed in a location. Anyone (with the financial means) can hire a cab to almost any place in the world. While some distances are too far to be practicable on foot, any distance that takes less than one hour to cross should be attempted on foot.
If I had rented a car:
 I wouldn't have discovered that little 12 table Tibetan restaurant.
I wouldn't have seen the nightly soup kitchen that provides hundreds of people with a warm meal only a few blocks from the Centre Pompidou.
I wouldn't have experienced the exhilaration of a getting to the Mont Saint Michel abbey through wind and rain.
No matter how many documentaries there are to watch. No matter how many books and blogs there are to read. Nothing will ever replace first hand experience. Traveling on foot doesn't have to be far from home. For most people (me included) international travel isn't possible at a whim. However, most of us have some sort of public transportation available. Even if it's just to get to one town over.
Don't just transport your body to a new destination. Let yourself feel where you are so that you can see it in a new way. Smell the place, taste it, hear it, touch it. For a short moment in time, be part of that place.
Which side are you on? "It's all about the destination." Or. "It's all about the journey." |
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Replies to my last Action/Adventure newsletter "Survival and Outdoor Adventures" that asked Do you have any real life adventures that happened to you somewhere outside?
Monty  wrote: Yes, I think some of my military poems would qualify.
That would totally qualify. |
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