On Travel
In this week’s episode of “Johnson breaks down words”, we have “travel”. Travel can mean a wide variety of things coming from different people in different contexts. I’ll share some common usages:
Framing
In relation to work:
- “Vacation” — I perceive vacation as not being its own thing, but being defined as “not work”, time where I can recover from/for work. This is how I perceive most people as relating to travel — time to not work.
- “Doing a thing(s)” — The intent here is to do a thing(s), standalone, unrelated to working or not. Often this might look like volunteering, learning a language, learning a skill/hobby. That I do so not where I live/work, potentially somewhere exotic, is incidental.
In relation to home:
- “A trip” — Travel can refer to going somewhere with the intent of it ending and coming home. Most people seem to have this frame.
- “Moving around” — Travel can also happen without a “home”. Some people don’t have home bases, and are moving around in an open ended way. Some are looking for a home.
Common intentions
- “Chilling/partying” — The intent here is usually relaxation and/or escapism. Examples of this might be going to a resort on a beach, or going somewhere to party a bunch
- “Friends/family” — The intent here is to, well, see and/or meet people that we want to see, new or old friends or family.
- “Clout building” — The intent here is to do something high status (travel) and be able to share about it, often on social media or in person. This might look like going to places that are viewed as cool, doing things that are viewed as cool, with the intent of being able to share your coolness with others.
- “Bucket listing/experience collecting” — The intent here is a sense of achievement and/or meaning/completeness. Often paired with a clout building intention, but separate, this is about traveling to feel like I’ve lived a full life. “I’ve done all the things I’m supposed to in life, I’ve knocked off the bucket list, I’m ready to die”
- “Personal growth” — The intent here is to learn more about myself and push my edges, which happens in travel by exposure to new people, ideas, environments, situations. In doing so I can gain perspective, wisdom, and capacities, to become a fuller, better version of me.
- “Adventuring” — The intent here is to explore, to dive into uncertainty, to see what is out there to satisfy curiosity and to seek aliveness through novelty. This looks like orienting around serendipity, spontaneity, surprise, wonder, delight, changing plans.
- “Life building” — The intent here is to drop into a place and get a sense of how it would be to live there. What would I do if I lived here? Where would I eat? Who would I be friends with? Where would I spend my time? How would I live? This usually looks like settling into a routine, forming relationships with people, joining communities, etc.
Common forms (how it looks)
- “My X week holiday” — most common, taking X amount of time off of work to go somewhere
- Gap year — common in Europe/Australia/New Zealand, taking a year off of the default life path (school -> work)
- “Nomading” — moving from place to place, usually for a somewhat longer period of time, e.g. spending a month or two in a bunch of places. Usually this is paired with remote work and referred to as digital nomading
- “Living abroad” — moving somewhere to be there for an extended period of time, but without an intention of staying there long term
Until I quit my job, I related to traveling in terms of work and home- traveling was time that I didn’t have to work (“vacation”), that I had for X amount of time, after which I would return home. When traveling, my primary intentions were all of them but life building.
In the last 4 years, that’s shifted a lot. My primary intentions, especially the last year, have been seeing people, personal growth, and life building. I have no home that I clearly intend to return to. I haven’t intended to do much clout building or adventuring in the last year, which is amusing/interesting.
I’ve had the “so what do you do?” “I’ve been on the road for the last 4 years.” “So have you just been traveling?” interaction countless times now. And the tone of the conversation suggests to me that people assume I’m a lazy hedonist more than they think I’m cool. So I don’t think I’m gaining much social status at this point, at least not with most people.
And adventuring, diving into the spirit of exploration, hasn’t been a primary intent for any of the places I’ve gone this last year, which actually brings me some sadness. To me, it’s the heart of traveling, and one of the things I fell in love with about it, so I’ve actually gone out of my way to try and keep this spirit alive, which is a work in progress. The main thing that I did was when I was in Berlin, I’d occasionally carve out a few hours/afternoons to just go to a part of the city and wander around, and let myself be guided by curiosity/aliveness.
In the last ~year, I’ve primarily gone places to get a sense of what life would be like there. This was true in Lisbon (1.5 months), Seattle (1.5 months), Bali (2 months), Taiwan (2.5 months), Berlin (3 months). Following that would be seeing people — I’ve been to several weddings, all back in the US, I went to Taiwan to spend time with family, particularly my mom, I went on a trip with my parents for a month, planned a 2 week trip/coliving event with 12 friends in Colombia, went to a summer camp thing with friends from Twitter called Vibe Camp. Personal growth has been in the background everywhere, but most top of mind at the residency I went to in France (!.5 months), in Taiwan with my mom, and in Bali.
“Where do you like to go? How often?”
I like to go wherever I want for however long I want to go, depending on my goals/intentions at the time 😅. In the last year I went to places where I can see friends and where I’m interested in potentially living — the former is mostly the US and Taiwan, the latter is mostly places with warm-ish climates, with friends or promising friends to be, with cool stuff to do. For adventuring, I like to go to places that aren’t commonly traveled to, that I don’t know much about and thus have a lot to learn about. They’re usually not very wealthy/developed countries lacking structure, comfort, and I like to plunge into the unknown. I don’t go as often as I’d like.
What is your favorite place in the world? Why?
I’ve been asked this question countless times and am bored of my own answers. I always start off by saying “everywhere is great for different reasons”, which is true. I’ll gauge their response to that a bit, usually it’s a bit of exasperation/impatience, which tells me that they just want a simple answer to the question. At that point I’ll choose a place I’ve gone that fits the mold of what I assume travel means to them. So I’ll probably say something like “I really liked Chile where I hitchhiked for a few months”, or “I really liked Taiwan where I built a relationship to the place as an adult”, or “I really like Indonesia and the Philippines because I love islands/water/beaches/tropical life, Wae Rebo in Indonesia in particular was breathtaking”. I won’t say “I really loved visiting my friends in LA”, or “I really loved going to Taiwan for the massive shifts I experienced in my relationship with my mom”.
If the question is about where I’ve been most satisfied/content/happy, I’ve been happy/satisfied in a lot of places, and the biggest variable is how close, dense, supportive my social network is. I’m consistently most happy when I’ve lived in a community with people I care about. I’ve found that to varying extents in varying ways in the US, Berlin, Bali, France, Taiwan, in particular.
