"We are inundated with advice on where to travel to, but we hear little of why and how we should go, even though the art of travel seems naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial..." So writes Alain De Botton in his neat little book, The Art of Travel, Pantheon Books, 2002.
So why do we (I) travel and how? Rick Steeves says we should travel as extroverts so we connect with people. That makes some sense to me but as an introvert that takes a lot of energy and sometimes I think I observe things that extroverts miss. Much of my need to travel is the need to experience that which is different. I gather that this does not hold for everyone as I observe many travelers gravitating to that which is most similar to home. In my introverted fashion I often take delight in being where I do not know the language. Yet I know that I miss much when I cannot converse with the locals. I am not one who must see every important site in an area, often taking much more delight in simply being in the places of everyday life.
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