Eight Ancient and Modern Perspectives on Travel

Is travel a joy or a burden, an opportunity or an obligation? Here are eight different perspectives to help you reframe and refine your approach to travel.

Some 80 million Americans, or about 25% of the entire US population, are predicted to travel more than 50 miles in the coming days, so here are eight ancient and modern perspectives on travel. They show a decidedly mixed view, variously praising or condemning travel.

Which ones speak most to you? (I’ve got my own thoughts below.)

Travel

The first perspective, from Lao Tzu 2,500 years ago, is the oldest:

Without leaving the house you can know the whole world.
Without looking out the window you can see the whole Tao.

不出户，知天下；不窥牖，见天道。¹

From about 2,000 years ago we have these three observations from Horace, Seneca, and Ovid:

Horace:

They change their clime but not their mind, who rush across the sea.

Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.²

Seneca:

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.

Vectatio iterque et mutata regio vigorem dabunt.³

Ovid:

He delighted to wander in unknown lands and to see strange rivers, his eagerness making light of toil.

Ignotis errare locis ignota videre flumina gaudebat studio minuente laborem.⁴

And from the (relatively) modern world, we have:

Middleton and Rowley:

He travels best that knows When to return.⁵

Thomas Fuller:

Never any weary traveller complained that he came too soon to his journey’s end.⁶

Thomas Jefferson:

Traveling makes men wiser, but less happy.⁷

Alexander Pushkin:

All the vexation accumulated during his dreary journey, the traveler takes out on the stationmaster.

Всю досаду, накопленную во время скучной езды, путешественник вымещает на смотрителе.⁸

Thoughts

Perhaps not surprisingly, Lao Tzu’s approach is the most foreign for me. He seems to be saying two things: that there is no merit in travel, and that travel is detrimental. As an avid traveler, I find both parts of this troubling. But Lao Tzu follows up by connecting travel to “moving farther away,” suggesting that distance (from anything? from oneself?) diminishes awareness; that’s why it’s better just to stay in one place. As I say, I don’t particularly like it, but equally I wouldn’t want to dismiss Lao Tzu out of hand.

Horace also takes a dim view of travel. He doesn’t go so far as to call it detrimental the way Lao Tzu does, but he does say it’s pointless. You might end up in a new place, but you’ll still be the same person, so why bother? I think there’s some merit to this, as it’s easy to expect too much from travel. But I also think that Horace is selling travel short. So does Seneca:

Seneca says travel can do wonders, giving the mind new vigor. Now there’s a pitch worthy of a modern travel agency: Go somewhere new and come back reinvigorated. I’ve certainly had this experience. Through my speaking I’ve been fortunate to see much of the world, and even arduous journeys have given me fantastic memories, opened my mind to new ways of thinking, and introduced me to some of my dearest friends.

Ovid basically agrees, and goes one step further. He says that the delight in visiting new places can overcome the work of getting there and being there. I like this nuance. It’s not just that travel is worth it, but even more, the benefits actually mitigate the difficulties. Sure, jetlag is difficult, but it’s easier to cope with if you’re also learning new things and seeing new places.

The prominent English playwrights Thomas Middleton and William Rowley seem to appreciate the value of travel, but warn against staying too long. I can relate to this as well. If a little time in a foreign place is beneficial, it’s tempting to think that a lot of time will be even more beneficial. But as with so many things, enough is enough. Knowing when to return is part of enjoying a destination.

The preacher Thomas Fuller says that travel is tiring, so the end of a journey is to be welcomed. Fuller actually brings this up in the context of death. (His point is that — even though he will welcome the end of his weary journey whenever it comes — he still doesn’t want to be unprepared for death. He concludes with another maxim: “Thus no guest comes unawares to him who keeps a constant table.”) Fuller’s musings about death notwithstanding, I think there’s a point worth recognizing here. Travel is tiring. It’s fun to go places, according to Seneca, Ovid, and Middleton and Rowley — and, I think, according to many modern travelers — but we are still allowed to want the journey to be shorter.

Jefferson’s observation is in many ways the most interesting to me. He says that you learn from travel but you end up less happy. I have experienced this as well. I’m fortunate to have a wonderful home in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. But the more I travel, the more I see ways in which, by comparison, my home is lacking. Similarly, I miss far-off people and places. I often wish I could combine elements of all of my travels into one perfect place. In that sense there are certainly some ways that I would be happier if I’d never traveled the world.

I adore what Pushkin writes here. Oh that poor stationmaster, victim of all the frustration of every weary traveler. Pushkin inherently agrees that travel is tiring (without taking a position here on whether it’s worthwhile), and in beautiful poetic fashion he expands that observation into a deep if troubling insight about the world: Human nature is to blame the person in front of us.

The stationmaster isn’t responsible for train delays. Or, in modern terms, it’s not the flight attendant’s fault that your plane is still on the ground and is only number 28 in the long queue to take off and for the love of God why are the seats so uncomfortable?!

We lash out at the people trying to help us, even though our woes are not their fault, and even though we will soon be getting a benefit they may not.

Perhaps as we all get ready to travel — now and in the future — we can take note of our good fortune. We are able to reap the rewards of going to new places, of seeing new things, and of visiting new friends and old. Instead of misplaced vexation, we can share our gratitude, thereby enhancing other people’s lives and in the process making our own lives better.

Travel well.

1. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching chapter 47, c. 500 BCE.

2. Horace, Epistles I.11.27, 1st c. BCE.

3. Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi 9.17.8, 1st c. CE.

4. Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.294-295, 1st c. CE.

5. Middleton and Rowley, The Phoenix, iv.2, c. 1603.

6. Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Bad Times, p. 24. 1645.

7. Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 1787.

8. Alexander Pushkin, The Stationmaster, 1831.