Do you want to go on a trip this summer
I embarked on a ten-month, ten-mile motorcycle journey beginning in Tennessee up to Alaska and back with nothing other than my GPS and a phone. The trip kicked off a year of research and travel, and despite the horrifying stories of canceled and delayed flights, I could not be more content.
Everywhere I was, even in the remote areas in the Yukon and British Columbia, folks were traveling. A lot of the trailers that were pulled were brand new, which suggests that the owners purchased them in the last few days. After another cold-blooded, shivering winter, it appears the desire to escape is also as intense.
Why do we go on the road at all in the first place? What’s the attraction of the road?
As an instructor in psychology, religion, and culture, I research experiences that are between all three. As I study travel, I am struck by the unsolvable contradictions that trip presents. The majority of us want to escape in order to experience the moment; we rush to destinations in an effort to reduce our speed, and we might be concerned about the environment, yet create carbon footprints.
In the end, a lot of people want to be transformed upon returning. Travel is typically viewed as anthropologists describe”a ” rite of passage,” that is, rituals where people disengage themselves from their normal environment, go through a transformation, and then return refreshed as well as “reborn.”
However, travelers aren’t just worried about their interests. The desire to explore could be a characteristic of humanity that I’ve argued in my newest publication, ” Just Traveling: God, Leaving Home, and a Spirituality for the Road.” The capacity to be able to do this is, however, an opportunity that could be costly to the host community. In a growing way, the travel industry, as well as scholars, are attracted by the ethics of travel that minimizes the impact of the harm that visitors do to locations and the people they meet.
The media flood tourists with tips and suggestions on where to go and what you can do there. To achieve the goals of transformational ethical travel, The “why” and “how” need to be considered more deeply.
As part of my book’s research, I looked into the sacred stories of travel and studied research from sociologists, psychologists, economists, ethicists, and tourism experts. Meaningful travel can be recognized not as a three-stage ritual but rather as a six-phase practice based on the core human experiences. The six phases can be repeated and cross-over within the same travel in the same way that experiences change direction.
Traveling is a long way off before departure when we plan and research. However, anticipation goes beyond logistics. The Dutch appropriately refer to it as “voorpret”: literally, the joy that comes before.
What and how people perceive a given situation has the potential to alter their experiences, either for good or worse, even in the case of prejudice. For instance, studies in psychology have proven the fact that when children are more likely to anticipate collaboration among groups, this can lessen the bias they have towards their group.
However, the field of phenomenology is a subfield of philosophy that examines the human experience and consciousness and stresses that anticipation is “empty“: our thoughts and hopes about what’s coming may be satiated or destroyed by a future event.
In this regard, travelers should remain open to the possibility of uncertainty or even dissatisfaction.
Moving away can bring up feelings that are rooted in the first experiences we have of separation. The types of attachment psychology psychologists study in infants that determine how secure people feel about their relationships remain a part of our lives as we grow older. These experiences also impact the way people feel comfortable exploring new places as well as leaving home, and this can affect the way they travel.
Certain travelers depart with excitement, While others feel fear or anxiety prior to the excitement and relief of leaving. Being aware of the various stages of travel can help travelers reduce stress.