What travel means to me
Travel has become a tired word.
Modern travel revolves around airports, packing lists, productive programs, dense content, much movement, beautiful photos and checking sightseeing lists.
For me, travel was never about sightseeing. Sightseeing is what lures people into travel, but to me it is the most surface-level part of it. Yet it is the main content we see on social media. Sightseeing and hotels.
Don’t misunderstand me. Sightseeing is a necessary part of my job. Travel needs to have the sightseeing aspect of it, too. It is the grounding element of a program, an official contract that we have with the guest. That’s what the guest buys.
But
My travel was never about sightseeing
My earliest memory of travel was when I was about six, seven years old… when we went with my grandmother and extended family members to visit Venice and it was the time of carnival.
I remember the magic of Venice. Perhaps when you are a child you notice better things that are very close to you, so more than the main square or the wonderful canals, I remember the beauty of the Venetian masks sold as little souvenirs. All this opulence and luxury of the masks, the pink colors, the glitter on them. They spoke directly to my heart. The feeling of abundance and prosperity was fantastic. For me, the first contact with travel was the first contact with luxury, and beauty, the hope, and opulence, and also a world with no financial worries away from the grayness of the real life.
What travel became for me
I am actually not coming into my own travel style from experiencing and trying to change tourism as it is. I am coming into it through growing and experiencing- myself. It comes from me discovering the limitations of my nervous system, my interests, and what uplifts me. It is also about what depletes me.
What drains me is ugliness. It’s superficiality, and surface-level people. And hotel environments that are uniform, or dull. Programs that don’t let you breathe.
What regulates me is art. Many times also castles and parks. They’re beautiful and have the right amount of wild nature in them. Sometimes it is also having my tea in a nice place, with a view. I regulate around slow, calm, elegant, and beautiful.
Slowing down is the only way into feeling, if you are like me. When I hurry, things start falling out of my hands, I start tripping. I lose things and am starting to feel confused.
When I slow down, I become my most elegant self. I feel the smoothness of my own movement, the butter-like flow, I hear the birds, I sense the light. And when I stop, I can finally sense the temperature, too.
Consuming vs. Experiencing travel
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
I find a big difference between consuming and experiencing. Experiencing is lightly touching the environment, or the people with great respect and care. It has a softness to it. It’s like walking on eggshells, but without the fear.
The act of experiencing implies that you are walking beside the culture you observe. And so it can’t be done without safely getting close to it and without yourself being truly present.
Consuming on the other hand, is transactional. Consuming implies taking, taking, taking and stuffing yourself with as much as you can, because that is, after all what you paid for.
What is meaningful travel
We stop in the mountains on the way to Santa Clara, Cuba. There is a tiny house there with only one room. It is a small primary school with one classroom and 6 students.
I tell the group not to take cameras. I really don’t want them to take photographs of those children and then only have this as proof of travel.
Conversation starts flowing. I ask the children what they like to eat. What music they like. What they want to become when they grow up. They almost fight over who will reply first. They seem to like our questions, and they look at us with curious eyes.
My aim for the group is to connect this living experience to the general Cuban culture. I do it through questions I ask.
At the end, we ask them to sing the Cuban national anthem for us. All 6 children sing with pride. They are about 7 years old, and they all know the lyrics and the melody. They stand firmly. It feels like an official school celebration. To thank them for their performance, we then offer to sing our national anthem. They now watch our performance. We are long past our school celebrations, so our singing is deeply emotional. It brings a few tears, but above all it brings a human connection. Through music and an open heart, our two cultures melt into one atmosphere that we share.
In that little school in the Escambray mountains of Cuba.
This is meaningful travel for me.
So, travel isn’t about sightseeing
So, travel was never really about sightseeing for me.
What interests me is the atmosphere of places and connections, beauty, dignity, culture, and meaningfulness.
I want us all to experience this travel through being present and alive.
Alja
Elegant Cultural Tours
I write occasional Letters about travel, atmosphere, culture, beauty, and the human side of journeys.
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