Why the Purpose of Travel is Discomfort and not Comfort

I just came back from a short trip to Prague and London. This was not a business trip, but a holiday I’d planned a year ago with childhood friends. Much of it was spent in luxurious hotels and good restaurants.

There was much laughter, conversation and catching up. I enjoyed walking through the Old Town of Prague. My morning strolls in London’s Hyde Park remain engraved on my heart. However, the whole trip seemed too comfortable, relaxed and affluent. True, I came back reinvigorated and ready to face my challenges at work, but there was something missing. The trip was like going to a New Year’s Eve party, where everything is rehearsed, organised and expected.

Many people view a holiday as a time to relax, do nothing and be comfortable. The reality, however, is that the purpose of travel is not our comfort, but rather our discomfort.

When we leave the comfort of home and the warm surroundings it provides us, we come face to face with uncertainty. Suddenly nothing is as you know it. On one hand, it’s exciting, while on the other it’s challenging. There is both novelty and adventure. The mind now works less on automacity and more on creativity.

We have to dig deep to face different and new parts of ourselves when we travel, so that we can discover more about ourselves. Like how we handle a new environment and the pressure it brings, or how we navigate a place without knowing the language.
Travel not only becomes an exploration of the world but also a discovery of ourselves through the world.

In Travels, Michael Crichton, describes this idea;

“Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so. Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes — with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That’s not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.”

I’ve promised myself that on my next trip away from home I will saunter through the city, aimlessly experiencing it through my senses, remove myself from the world, put myself into the heart of a city and become one with it, like a true flâneur.

I will make sure to be uncomfortable enough, so that I can experience the city, culture and environment directly. In that way, I would have unearthed new parts of me that were waiting to be revealed.