Is travel a dying art? Are people not still making more traveling arrangements than in the past century? And are there not more traveling information for better travel planning than the last century? These could be some of the questions which could have just popped into your mind after reading the title. But do you know that what we perceive as traveling today is totally different from what was understood as traveling in the olden days?
The Motivation to Travel: Is it Similar to the Olden Days?
See for yourself. The aristocrats, explorers, sea-voyagers, and the lone travelers of the past where driven by different desires and ambitions. Their desire to travel was not to release off the pressures associated with a busy work schedule. They wanted to explore. To discover new natural sceneries. They were driven by the desire to discover what lies in the rest of the world. And still, they felt that it was their duty to reach out to the unreached and spread their civilization to the otherwise unreached world.
Others had a desire to find out new opportunities in the world beyond. To connect with people, learn new cultures, and see what good they could take back and mix with their current ways of life. That’s how cultures mixed, new ways of doing things spread to different parts of the world, and civilization became universal rather than limited to specific parts of the world.
The opening up of the North and the South American continents was due to a desire to discover something new. Not forgetting Africa, Southern Asia, and the Far East countries such as China and Japan.
People are born with an innate curiosity to know more, to learn more, and have new experiences. This should and has always been the real and authentic reason for traveling. But is it the chief reason for travel today? The 10 pointers below will prove otherwise.
1. The Decline of Hitchhiking
Hitchhiking was a common way through which travelers would reach to new destinations. It provided an opportunity to connect and make new friendships, extend the hospitality which is inherent in humanity, and make the whole traveling experience sporadic. But with the rise of insecurity, cases of kidnapping, and even murders, people are more reluctant to ask for hitchhiking from strangers. Drivers are also wary of giving rides to strangers.
The alternative is to make full traveling arrangement on your own. People who love traveling upcountry equip their cars with aluminum roof rack to extend the ability of their cars to carry more luggage and others have resorted to buying or renting RVs (Recreational Vehicles).
2. Focus on Minor Details Instead of Leisure
It’s common to hear travelers after coming from a trip complaining of how the hotel room was not classic enough, how they could not get the rare Stella rosa black in the hotel, and a myriad of other nitty-gritty issues. Such a focus on minor details reduces the leisure level and turns a travel experience into a fault-finding activity. If you want to fully derive the ultimate leisure out of your travel experience, learn the art of travel and you will always derive the best out of any traveling expedition.
3. Predictability and Less Sporadic Travel Experiences
Traveling nowadays is full of obvious. Even before traveling, you have a clear picture of how the hotel room where you will spend the night will look like, whether you will get a crown royal reserve or any other classic whiskey, and multiple other details. Such a level of predictability is aided by the fact that information is available online and you can even get a video of the place you are planning to visit online. This extensive information increases predictability and reduces sporadicity which is key in creating unforgettable travel experiences.
4. It’s Never an Experience but a Commodity
Unforgettable experiences are created when you get to mingle with the natives, learn new things, and figure out things on your own. But traveling has been commoditized. It’s not up to you to care how you will reach your destinations, where you will sleep or even how you will obtain the needed directions to the new site-seeing locations. While commoditization is to some extent beneficial it has consistently failed to help travelers create those wild experiences during their traveling expeditions.
5. Drive to Spectate and not Participate
Traveling should incorporate participation. It’s through participation that you feel, smell, taste, and experience real life in foreign land. But this art is slowly dwindling among modern day travelers. What’s is common and popular is spectating. The modern traveler loves taking photos from the tour vehicle, watching events unveil from afar, and having a strange and inhuman kind of aloofness.
6. It’s Less of Mixing with the Natives and More of Passing Them By
You will agree that nowadays traveling is just passing through different locations and making stops to buy exotic drinks and taking snaps to share on social media. But the art of traveling dictates that you do more. Mix and intermingle with the people, get to learn their culture, and appreciate their unique way of viewing and doing things. But very few travelers mind putting such activities in their traveling plans.
7. More of Convenience and Less of Creativity
Traveling is about improvising. It’s about solving emerging challenges which you encounter on the way. It should be a time where your full brain power is engaged and fully creative. These are the dictates of the art of travel. But the modern day traveler wants to be a tourist whose needs and desires are efficiently and quickly met. They prefer convenience rather than experience. Evasion of problems instead of involvement in finding their solutions. The result is an unfulfilled traveling experience.
8. The Drive to Fit in Instead of Pursuit of Leisure
More and more people are embracing travel and wild getaways as a way of fitting into the current social structure. They want to travel to prove it to their friends and co-workers. Instead, the art of traveling dictates that you travel in pursuit of leisure and in a bid to shed off the pressures associated with familiar environments.
9. The Death of Habits Which Create Happiness
There are habits which are strongly linked with traveling. It’s a time to explore new ideas, try new foods, and intermingle with strangers. It’s about fun, connecting with nature’s goodness, and just letting time pass by without thinking much about it. These habits are slowly dying today. Travelers still want to cling to themselves, are still worried over non-essentials, and are extremely reluctant to accommodate new experiences during their traveling time.
10. Over-expectation and Under-commitment
Travelers are nowadays expecting much and making little efforts to ensure that such expectations are met. If you want your traveling experience to be pure bliss, ensure that you make the necessary preparations. Take your dirt bikes for service and maintenance, equip yourself with the necessary gadgets, and don’t forget the emergency kit.
Conclusion
The art of traveling can still be revived. Don’t follow the bandwagon. Use the above pointers to improve your traveling experience and always create new memories for every traveling expedition.
Contributor: Rebecca Siggers
Rebecca has been closely studying the travel industry trends from quite some time. Intrigued by the booming growth of this sector, she takes interest in penning down her views providing quality insight on current travel trends and also likes to write about food and beverages, particularly wine.
