Why I Travel: To Find Happiness? Nope.

My parents took me and my brother on road trips throughout the United States every summer. When I was 15 years old I had a driver’s learning permit and they had me share the duty of the captain’s chair on a big trip from Texas to Montana to California and back. In total I commanded the family van through 10 big states before I’d even turned 16 years old and earned my full license. We saw the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills and the Grand Canyon and even the Pacific Ocean from the beaches of Los Angeles.

Grand Tetons by Flickr/Joanna Poe

I returned to my “normal life” in high school and I felt like a different person… like I could perhaps handle the stark juxtaposition of public school’s twisting tempests and dreary flatness.

I went from fairly depressed about life’s possibilities as a sophomore to wildly curious about what I couldn’t do just a few weeks later. I ran for student office, joined theater, played sports, took the hard classes, and never shied away from a dance floor again. Thus, my life was forever altered by the sense of accomplishment and adaptability to life’s winding road that I learned while traveling.

That open road spirit was what led me to my first international travel at 19 when I decided to go study abroad in Cannes and Paris for more than half a year. I figured I had to be studying somewhere, it might as well be somewhere interesting (no offense, Dallas).

When I’d decided to go live in one of the world’s great cities and attempt to operate in a second language, I was terrified that I would be too different. I was sure that Paris would feel alien to me.

Although it was challenging and I did feel different – I also found the sameness across the cultures and people. Everywhere I’ve traveled since – I write this now from the Arctic Circle in Norway – I’ve discovered that people essentially want the same things: to be healthy, safe, entertained, connected, respected, and loved. Different cultures do those things differently, but the goals are the same.

There was this moment, in Paris, during a cold day, when I realized how little I felt in the big city – but how centered I felt in the tiny world. I remember feeling truly liberated. I didn’t have to be strictly American, or Texan, or a certain type of man, or any other part of my assigned birth lottery. I could just be.

Travel unlocked my awareness of who I could be, who I was, and who I am. That awareness unlocked authentic relationships and career choices, which unlocked systems for sustained happiness. Happiness wasn’t the goal, and it still isn’t the goal, really. The goal is to be self-aware without having to be self-centered. Happiness is the byproduct.

So why do I travel? To know myself.

We’re looking to start a conversation about “Why We Travel” and we want to explore the decision point. This is the good stuff. The profound, poetic, imperfect, Hemingway-esque self-reflection. Got one? Send us your submissions here: https://bootsnall.submittable.com/submit

When did you first travel? What were your thoughts or perceptions about how travel would be before you began? What were your thoughts along the journey? How were you transformed by that first trip? What did it feel like while you were traveling? What did you learn? Where have you been since?

Rearview mirror photo by Flickr/Nic McPhee