The Need To Travel
Words and Photographs by Alex Mitcheson
Long unmoving airport security queues are a no man’s land to the adventurous soul. Overpriced, limp fast-food options are a scourge to cultured tastebuds. And those irate shoves and pushes at the luggage carousel an assault on human dignity. But when it comes to escaping the norm — fleeing your bulging work email inbox — and seeing somewhere completely new, the average person will gladly throw themselves in this whirlpool of discomfort and inconvenience. There’s probably a minority of masochists who enjoy outlaying small fortunes for the traditional beer at the airport Instagram post. These hallmarks of modernity are what we must do to cram ourselves into a steel cylinder which will then propel us at 900 km/h to another segment of the planet. Tray in the upright position, and window blinds open, naturally.
Then you’ll need to smile for the immigration officer — but not too much — and navigate your path through waving name cards successfully before you’re home and dry. Fuelled by caffeine, saturated fat, and recycled air, Christopher Columbus has got nothing on you.
Our lust for travel is insatiable. And the irritations of airports, or whatever other mode of transport you choose, pale in comparison to the primaeval ecstasy of smelling a new city’s aroma or hearing the heartbeat of the hubbub on the streets. It’s Christmas morning. It’s kissing an attractive stranger. It’s freewheeling with your hands off the handlebars. It’s standing in line at the Louvre for 3 hours in 40-degree heat.
My recent experience of travelling home to the UK for a visit is no different from the herculean episode you expect it to be. Two car rides, a train journey, two long-haul flights, and a domestic connection later has me standing at my mum’s front door — 32 hours with all the trimmings. Bordering on neuroticism and perhaps a shade away from delirium, my partner and I make our excuses and fall into bed.
The following morning, awakening like a coiled spring, I suggest a walk. As we make our way down onto the beach, the soft terracotta-hued sand sinks away beneath our weary jet-lagged legs. The distance calls of seagulls are the only distraction as the cloudless sky frames the imposing figure of Dunstanburgh Castle in the distance. This is the storybook part of England where I grew up: a place where there is history around every corner and going to see a man about a dog means you won’t come home sober. But in the end, at the ripe age of 23 and armed with a dishevelled backpack, a one-way ticket to Melbourne and £900 to my name, a young man left this behind and never properly looked back. But why so?
Travel is a basic human desire. We’re a migratory species. Even if these movements arise from a need to find ourselves, experience a new culture, or simply pool and drink ourselves into oblivion. Several key science papers suggest getting away from it all is an essential pattern of effective thinking. It’s putting some miles between home and wherever you find yourself checking in to. The benefit from this distance comes as a peculiarity of intellect because — whether we own up to it or not — we’re geared to ruminate issues close to us in a restrictive manner, and we’re less open to unclear prospects that could solve and fix.
Between the pages of French novelist Marcel Proust’s famed, In Search of Lost Time, the author tells us, ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes’. When escaping the locale you inhabit, your brain begins to hop, skip, and jump to unconscious connections, something like, I hate my job; maybe I can upskill; hell yeah, I’m going back to university to train as a psychologist is a realistic train of thought — and can swiftly materialise well before you’ve even tucked into your eggs of a morning. I had this experience earlier this year, sitting on La Concha Beach, San Sebastian — pre aperitivo hour, mind you — when a rhino-sized epiphany hit me sideways. An almost life-changing consideration. And I unequivocally attach its arrival in my cranium to the fact I was decamped from my usual setting and looking at life with a fully zoomed-out lens. The several mojitos afterwards only cemented this.
And what about the cultural differences we encounter as we traverse the globe? Not the time you rode your motorbike sans helmet in Vietnam or the beer you had with your McNuggets in Paris — but the open-mindedness we gain from seeing something simple and linear with multiple meanings. The French inclination to kiss; Malaysians pointing things out with their thumbs; letting out a belch confirming a great meal in India. These societal divergences mean the weathered wanderer has a much higher chance of accepting there are different — and equally valid — ways of translating the world around them. These endless torrents of surprises remind us of what we truly know in the grand scheme of things: nada.
The acceptance we have towards dehydration at 40,000 feet and a double-booked hotel suite being everyday prerequisites for a healthy journey is a sham. Surely your never-to-be-seen-again luggage isn’t really worth the thronged photo opportunity at Rome’s Spanish Steps? It’s not — and nor should it be. We travel because we must. We embark on these journeys for difference, distance, and the secret shot-in-the-arm of inspiration and acceptance we all need at one time or another to lead a better life.