Sometimes, I just can’t stop myself.
During a recent trip to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, I found myself constantly texting photos back home to a couple of buddies. Probably much to their irritation, I sent images of such iconic places as Big Ben, the canals of Amsterdam, a Dutch windmill, Abbey Road and the White Cliffs of Dover. I couldn’t believe I was seeing these places I’d heard about all my life.
But one friend finally had enough and wrote, “I’m glad you’re having a good time and I’m getting to see these places through your eyes. But I have absolutely no interest in traveling. For me, there’s not enough juice for the squeeze.”
On a certain level, I understand what he means. The physical and emotional challenges of racing to airports, subways, train stations, hotels and destinations of interest can be absolutely exhausting, even for intrepid travelers in the best of shape. Despite advances in the travel industry (especially now in “the Information Age”), the old adage still applies that you usually need a vacation from your vacation.
“Rick Steves makes it all look so easy,” I whined to my wife, referring to the chirpy travel writer/TV personality, while schlepping with luggage up a steep street in the English town of Folkestone.
But with all due respect to my rather sedentary friend (who was likely parked in front of a TV digging into a bag of Cheetos when texting me), traveling is worth the juice.
Of course, there’s the opportunity to see famous, stunning places we’ve all read about and seen in movies. And there’s the chance to absorb how people in other cultures live.
But traveling is more than that. As the philosopher Martin Buber wrote, “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
An example of that for me was touring Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House, which more than a million people visit annually.
Confession: I never read “The Diary of Anne Frank” until recently, while preparing for my Amsterdam trip. Somehow, inexplicably, I never read it in my younger years, and assumed it was basically a coming-of-age story.
Reading the diary as an adult is a completely different experience, and you understand why the planet fell in love with this brilliant girl who embodied so much hope and faith in the future.
Walking through the museum with visitors representing every strain of humanity — all in hushed reverence — was nothing less than a spiritual, cathartic experience. Stepping through the Secret Annex and being where the young diarist dwelled for two years of dread and anxiety before her demise brought the horrors and complexity of the Holocaust even closer to home.
There was also our time in Folkestone. As fate would have it, we visited this quaint beach town on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Folkestone was among 80 communities along the southeastern English Channel coast observing the milestone with official ceremonies. I can tell you that watching elderly attendees sing “God Save the King” and light a beacon honoring soldiers who sacrificed everything for our freedom is something I’ll never forget.
The bottom line is you simply can’t get those experiences by reading a book or watching a documentary. You have to be there.
But you don’t have to go abroad to experience the joys of traveling. In the July/August issue of Jmore, you’ll read about places in our endlessly enchanting state worth visiting. A recent first-time visit to Southern Maryland reminded me there’s so much to see in our own backyard.
Safe Travels,
Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief
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