The Philosophy of Travel (really!)

Wow. Thank you for sharing... that book is exactly what I need!

Looks interesting.
My philosophy of travel is multi-faceted.
1) As a student and lover of history, I want to explore the places that I have studied and read about in history. From the ancient temples and tombs along the Nile to the Great Wall of China to the Roman Forum and Coliseum. Also, the British Parliament, Parthenon in Athens, Jerusalem, Istanbul and more.
2) Foreign travel is a great way to understand other cultures or even countries within my own western culture.
3) Many great works of art require travel. We love museums and art museums like the Lourve, Prado, Rijksmuseum, Hermitage, Vatican (and Sistine Chapel) are just a few wonderful museums that I have visited. Also, the Museum of Fine Arts.
4) There are many places in the World with exceptional scenery. Places in Alaska, Around the Horn of South America, Norway, The SE coast of Australia, Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, are just a few.
5) Travel in a learning and enriching experience. I know that I have learned far more by visiting places than just reading about them. Interacting with local people makes a big difference.

My philosophy of travel is still inchoate, except for one angle related to awareness. Whatever we see routinely tends to become invisible, in the sense that we no longer notice it--mailboxes, crosswalk lights, "ordinary architecture", etc. But traveling puts you into a different-enough situation that everything seems "fresh and new" and worth paying attention to, if that makes any sense. I love that feeling of enhanced perception.

Then there are the museums of course. Wife and I are museum demons, and will spend hours. I was an art history major back in the early holocene, and it is extremely thrilling to see something for real that I first saw in a book or via a slide, in some cases 50 years ago. (We did not travel much for a long time.)

Not really international travel but "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is a philosophy book set around a cross country motorcycle trip. I haven't read it since I was a college freshman (17 years old). I had an old, and cheap, motorcycle at the time so a friend recommended it. I still remember some of the book's musings: If you drive down a straight freeway for four hours you feel exhausted but if you drive down a winding country road for four hours you feel refreshed (something like that anyway).

My philosophy is travel is about learning. I'd like to know everything. I don't have enough years to get close so the most important thing to learn is people. People fascinate me. Not always building long-term relationships - just learning what makes people who they are, understanding not only what they think but why they think it.

In my view, learning about a person is like exploring a universe. Each person represents a vastly complex blend of their family, friends, interactions (good and bad), education, work, religion, politics, culture, history, language, art, music, food, philosophy and more. People, however, have an ability to become something that is beyond, or even unexpectedly different than, all of those inputs. Amazing.

Yep, Zen and the Art of MM is certainly, among other things, a travel-philosophy book. Actually read it again maybe 3 years ago, and it held up very well compared to my first experience of it. Barbra's skepticism has a point, in that there is probably an implicit (at least) philosophy of travel in any good book on travel (Chatwin, Theroux, Bryson, Steves and many others). Sometimes it is stated explicitly, as in Rick's Backdoor approach. I expect the "first book on the philosophy of travel" to be as explicit as possible, and to attempt to be both systematic and comprehensive, since that would be a typical MO for a philosophy book written by an academic. This all has somehow reminded me that Basho's Narrow Road to the Deep North has been on my list for about 30 years. Probably time to move that one to on-deck status.

Brad, I think I view artworks the same way you do people--both are foci for any number of influences, and both can (and commonly do) transcend their influences. I too am very curious about the people we run into in Europe (where we mainly travel), but I'm hesitant about being too inquisitive, not wanting to come off as a pushy American. (I'm sure you and many others can pull this off, but I can be conversationally challenged.) Once we retire we plan to spend weeks in a given area, maybe via home exchanges, and hopefully this will be a chance to really get to know some Europeans.

Not really international travel but "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is a philosophy book set around a cross country motorcycle trip. I haven't read it since I was a college freshman (17 years old). I had an old, and cheap, motorcycle at the time so a friend recommended it.

When I read that book, in college, it did not help me fix my broken motorcycle. At all. And I was disappointed when I ended up selling it as a heap of disassemble parts. Thinking back on that experience now, it may have saved my life. So I guess there's the philosophical part...

All interesting perspectives. Thank you

However, I don't get this part of the book summary...

It asks why people travel, what should motivate scientific research, and where God might be

I can't imagine what connections the author is trying to make here. Thoughts?

David, apparently a meditative mindset is helpful for mechanical repairs, but not enough by itself. Turns out you also have to know what you're doing :-) I learned this the hard way, spending many months fixing a vintage Alfa-Romeo, ordering parts from Italy, the whole nine yards. Had lots of expert coaching that got me a long way. But when I fired it up I had forgotten to tighten the timing chain, and the valves and pistons mutually destructed, among many other disasters.

I had a bike too. After mile 20,000 I started to get a weird feeling that I was due to get hit, and that was the end of that. That feeling involved a bit of philosophical wisdom that an old guy in Maine summed up for me once: "Any day on this side of the grass is a good day".

Peter, I don't have a clue. Why people travel makes sense as a question, but the others just come out of left field. Maybe travel is like a religion to some people? (Maybe experience of art? I actually did feel faint for a few seconds inside San Vitale Ravenna.) I'll post a book report once I read it.

My philosophy is from TS Eliot in the Four Quartets:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Well the fact that it claims to be the "FIRST" book ever on the philosophy of travel means it has serious problems. Go to amazon search for 'philosophy of travel' and you get 20 PAGES of titles. Not to mention the owner of this website has done a pretty good job of explaining the philosophy of travel and has even written at least two books on the topic.