Susan Michelle's Compass
Just Because You Travel Doesn't Mean You're A Traveler
By travel lifestylist Susan Michelle
Jul 20, 2008 - 10:26:24 PM

What makes one person a “traveler,” and another person not?  I’m not talking about someone who travels because they have to, for work, or family, or some obligatory reason — but someone who LOVES to travel, who needs to hit the road as much as they need to breathe; who’s completely infected with the travel bug, versus someone who just ... doesn’t get it?

I had lunch last week with someone who’s not a traveler. Joe is 52, lives three blocks from his high school, and, according to his mother-in-law, the one time he went to Europe 30 years ago, he spent the whole trip repeating, “Nothing’s better than California.”  Joe explains this story away by saying he was too young to appreciate Europe then, that he just wanted to be home with his friends.  Now, he says, he wants to travel.  He has four weeks of accrued vacation, enough disposable income, good health, and grown kids.  There’s nothing to hold him back.

“Where would you go?” I asked him.

He thought about it for a few minutes, and then drew a blank.  I threw out the idea of starting with a short weekend trip, maybe to Portland, or Hawaii, or Sedona.

His response?  “Okay, say I went all the way to Portland for three days.  What would I DO when I got there?  Is there some big thing to see there or something?”

I laughed, and he stared at me, perplexed. THIS is the difference between travelers and non-travelers, I thought.

Travelers never need someone to tell them where to go, or what to do when they get there.  They’re driven to go, see, do, and explore, without prompting.  They return home with souvenirs and pictures, tales of adventures, memories of faraway lands… and, already, thoughts of the next place that’s calling them.

Some travelers are born travelers, naturally free-spirited and always yearning to get the heck out of Dodge.  Some become travelers via experience, infected by the bug after family, school, or friends expose them to someplace new at a young age.  The other kind of traveler?  Mostly folks who spent life mired in obligation, never having the means to travel until the latter chapter of their years.

But that type usually still dreamt of travel during the years they couldn’t.  For someone like Joe, who’s never had much of a desire, despite being exposed in his youth, chances are slim that he will ever be transformed … even if he does make it to Portland or Hawaii, or even Bahrain.

Should he give up the idea of traveling at all?  Absolutely not.  Even if you’re not a “traveler,” travel can open your heart and mind more than almost anything in life.  When you journey abroad, you learn, you stretch, you get out of your comfort zone, and usually come back stronger and more appreciative of your life back at Dodge than you ever were before… something much needed if you’ll be spending the rest of your years still living just three blocks from your high school.

Leave Your Comments: How did you become a traveler?  Or not?  Think Susan's thoughts are way off-base?  Join the discussion on the Susan Michelle's Compass Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Susan-Michelles-Compass/6329119894.  See you there!