Travel

When I travel I spend the majority of my time quietly observing the different environments and the way the ordinary people in any place go about their everyday lives. I'm constantly on the lookout for what they do that is different and what they do that is the same. I try to have as many conversations as I can with different people contrasting my way of life and backround with theirs and comparing our different cultures, economies and philosophies. I am always amazed at how ready and willing people are to share their experience with me and how unique and interesting we all are - Oxford Muse, 2005

Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognise its imperfection and natural weakness - Michel de Montaigne

Travel wakes me up when life seems dull and boring, when I've run out of things to say to friends, when I feel trapped in an unchanging routine, when conversations revolve around impossible problems, ailments, how things were so much better when ..., when I'm pissed off and fed up and in danger of making my friends feel the same - Oxford Muse, 2005

Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living -- Miriam Beard

Travel has also helped me to relate better to people from different nationalities in my own country. I am more and more interested in talking to them and learning from them and I have more experiences to weave into our conversations. Recently I have joined a group working with asylum seekers and immigrants and I'm hopeful that I will be able to make a useful contribution to their integration into our society - Oxford Muse, 2005

Travel [means] You are a better observer. You may have something fresh to say. I think too, travel can help you see what really matters to you. Do you really want a house? Do you really need a car? All those books, are they really important? And that's just things. What about the people in your life? - Oxford Muse, 2005

The traveller must train his wits. All is easy at home - Vikings Havamal

Many working people today travel who never would have in the past, for meetings and conferences and all kinds of things, and this is creating another identity for them - Malcolm Gladwell, Time, 14/11/05

I find that when I travel I mix more readily with different types of people. At home I mix in quite limited social circles and my reserved character and inbuilt prejudices, I suppose, prevent me from reaching out beyond a certain area of comfort. Travel opens me up, energises me and makes me more adventurous and talkative. I become a different person, in some respects - Oxford Muse, 2005

He who does not trust others cannot be trusted - Swahili tribe