Travel is intensified living–maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. It’s recess and we need it. . .

Affording travel is a metter of priorities (make do with the old car). . .in many ways, spending more money only builds a thicker wall between you and what you came to see. Europe is a cultural carnival and, time after time, you’ll find that its best acts are free and the best seats are the cheap ones.

A tight budget forces you to travel close to the ground, meeting and communicating with the people, not relying on service with a purchased smile. Never sacrifice sleep, nutrition, safety, or cleanliness in the name of budget. Simply enjoy the local-style alternatives to expensive hotels and restaurants.

Extroverts have more fun. If your trip is low on magic moments, kick yourself and make things happen. If you don’t enjoy a place, maybe you don’t know enough about it. Seek the truth. Recognize tourist traps. Give a culture the benefit of your open mind. See things as different but not better or worse. Any culture has much to share.

Of course, travel, like the world, is a series of hills and valleys. BE FANATICALLY POSITIVE AND MILITANTLY OPTIMISTIC. If something’s not to your liking, change your liking. Travel is addicting. It can make you a happier American, as well as a citizen of the world. Our Earth is home to nearly 6 billion equally important people. It’s humbling to travel and find that people don’t envy Americans. They like us, but with all due respect, they wouldn’t trade passports.

Globetrotting destroys ethnocentricity. It helps you understand and appreciate different cultures. Travel changes people. It broadens pespectives and teaches new ways to measure quality of life. Many travelers toss aside their hometime blinders. Their prized souvenirs are the strands of different cultures they decide to knit into their own character. The world is a cultural yarn shop. And Back Door Travelers are weaving the ultimate tapestry.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2005 at 7:49 am and is filed under England, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.