Notes on Travel

Inevitably, whenever one travels one runs into some lovely people. You would think that the fleeting, transient nature of these meetings would foster a guarded or aloof atmosphere, but such is not the case. Rather, the liminal otherness of the shared setting takes precedence and most travellers treat you like an old friend, or a fellow member of 'the club'. Victor Turner (the great anthropologist) talked of this at length, using the term communitas, and while I have been critical of the concept in the past I can now see its relevance, at least in this context, so removed as 'we' (Western travellers) are from our familiar surrounds. All we have for familiarity, for 'family' is those who speak our language and share some of our cultural values (or at least can joke about the vicissitudes of the traveller's life) - things we can connect with that bring us home, at least for a few minutes. Something comprehensible amid what is most incomprehensible.
It's a strange desire though, this need to be 'returned' home through contact with other travellers. We spend thousands of dollars to travel half way around the world, are at pains to 'go native', and seek the cheapest deal wherever we go, yet we often seek out those 'from home', pouncing on them at times, so desperate are we to again be in surrounds we know. But it is in these moments of connection that some of the deepest meanings and most touching moments of travel can be found. I think it might have been Satre who said that our identity, our being, lies in the eyes (or look) of others. Reshaping this a bit I think we can say that when we travel our new found friends are, in a sense, our interpreters. We make sense of our world with them, and through them. We are, after all social beings. Our sociality defines us, as without it we become 'mere animals'. So when travelling, perhaps it is not necessarily where you travel that matters so much, but who you travel with, for from their eyes come the meanings of your travel experience.