3 Top Reasons Why We Travel

Tomorrow morning I am taking the train into work and handing in my resignation. I will be wearing my ironed shirt and my shiny shoes as a weapon of courtesy, but my smile will be the one thing that is telling the truth and screaming with joy.

That alarm has been going off now on a morning for years. Sometimes the alarm is a good alarm, elephant trekking in Chang Mai for instance. Sometimes the alarm is a bad one, like catching the overnight bus through Laos and its many winding building sites. An alarm always has and always will be there.

Nevertheless, for me the alarm as always been the signal of another exciting day living the life that I choose to live. Now I’m faced with a brand new alarm, an alarm that we can look on in an altogether different fashion, the alarm that gets you up for your 9-5 job in the city. The job that in no way contributes to life as you want it. The job that sucks the fun out of your weekday.

As you are reading this you are probably thinking that I’m a lazy, stereo-typically British youth, an ungrateful good for nothing that is never happy. But I am looking deeper than that, mainly because I don’t want to think of myself in that way! I am examining what it is that makes us travelers and not want settle down in the big city, in my case Brisbane at the moment. What is it that drives us every day to make decisions which mean we will see and do more in our lifetimes than most people we know at home.

1. We are Generation Y!

After some searching all around the web I truly believe this could be the main reason why we are who we are. Common put downs for this generation include lazy, debt-ridden and programmed for instant gratification. We are portrayed as demanding and unrealistic in our career aspirations. Sound familiar? Now we can add “internet-addicted” and “lonely” to the list as well apparently. We should be proud. All these things make us who we are. We are risk takers and problem solvers. We see our parents and we don’t aspire for the same life. We don’t know what we want but we know we want it. It’s difficult being Generation Y, but my god it is fun.

2. The world is getting smaller!

Globalisation id taking major effect on this earth that we live in. No longer does Betty from the east end only see sandy beaches on Baywatch. No, now Betty can get on a plane for next to nothing and sample the delights of Spain as if it was on her doorstep. Betty nowadays buys her wine and cigarettes from a French shop just off the port in Calais rather than the local off licence. The saying that ‘the world is your oyster’ is ringing true nowadays for people who wouldn’t even ever dream of eating an oyster.

The face of travel and its purpose has changed entirely. Whereas travel in past decades used to have educational motives, think of the explorers on old grainy film, or it was only for the higher classes. Now in our truly capitalist society the affordability of air travel has opened many a door for the young impressionable mind. Travel as become a decision and a privilege rather than just a privilege. Children can now add traveling and experiencing cultures to lists of what they want to do when they grow up as easy as deciding what kind of happy meal they want. Even better than that, traveling is now expected.

This gives us the freedom and the feeling of low risk to see things, to be scared by things and to experience every little moment of our lives. God bless Globalisation!

3. Nobody is sure of what they want anymore!

We are some of the most intelligent people we know. Yet only a small percentage of us know what we want to achieve. The others, well we say ‘we want to be happy’ or ‘I want to have a well-paid job that is my passion’. We can’t really decide on an actual vocation which will bring us these feelings we long for. Go back to only your parent’s generation (if they were working class like mine) and their answers would have been very different. It would have been to get a job and keep it. No matter what type of job, just get the job, keep it and earn from it. ‘Enjoy your weekends and get a trade’ my grandmother once said to me.

It’s difficult to pinpoint why we don’t know what we want to become or achieve on a more practical level. But I know that I’m going to keep trying. Why not enjoy every day and not just weekends!! That’s why I travel. It’s because I’m still searching for answers. I certainly won’t find them staring at the cubicle walls of an office, besides so far I’m enjoying the journey.

So that’s is, my mind is made, when I wake up I’m going in to work and I’m going to climb myself straight back out of the bear pit that I willingly jumped into with a letter of resignation and a pocket full of memories as my inspirations.

Am I ready to settle? Am I ready to spend only three or four hours a day doing what makes me me? Nah not yet, I think I’ll leave that to the more unfulfilled guy.

Please take a look at my other blogs on the site! You might like them, you might hate them, you might find more reasons why we travel. Either way I want to hear from you! Leave a comment below!