But what does travel really mean?
In the collective imagination travel means to escape the daily routine, away from work, stress, school, and everyday obligations. Of course, the term also entails all which you see along the way - the emotions, discoveries, wisdom and beyond.
There is no man more complete than the one who travelled a lot, who changed the shape of his thoughts and his life twenty times.
Alphonse de Lamartine - Voyage en Orient
To understand the meaning, we called in the experts in travel - travel bloggers. Always with suitcases at the ready and willing to venture to the other side of the world, all for different reasons! Who better than them to clarify?
Brendan Van Son www.brendansadventures.com
For me, the answer to this question changes constantly. At first, travel meant freedom to explore both the world and my own person. Then, travel meant growth. It meant learning about different cultures, languages, people, and environments. Recently, travel has become about inspiration.
Jenna Davis www.giveforgranted.com
Travelling for me is to explore not just your surroundings, but yourself. It is to find a meaning in life and to inspire change in the world around you. I use travel as a way to enlighten and educate myself while using this to help make a difference across the globe.
Rob Dobson www.homagetobcn.com
For me travelling is all about discovery. I'm an avid reader and like to know about the places I'm visiting. A bit of the history, an understanding of the culture, as well as of course the best places for food. It's about discovering as closely as possible what it would be like to live in a place. Although there's really no substitute for this than actually doing it.
Max Hartshorne www.gonomad.com
Traveling means that every month, I've got something brilliant, inspiring and new to look forward to. Traveling means I'll be sprung from my home office solitude and get a chance to have dinner with bright, intelligent well-traveled journalists and or hosts in foreign countries. I'll get to ask them about their lives and learn about what life is like there, and I'll get to experience, taste and see it all and then share it every day on social media, every night on my daily blog, and then in a big feature story on GoNOMAD.com. I've done a monthly trip every year since I bought GoNOMAD in 2002, and it only gets more fun as I return to destinations, our reach increases and thus the value that I can bring is better and wider, and my writing and photography get fine tuned with so much practice.
Johnny Ward www.onestep4ward.com
Traveling represents genuine freedom for me. I don't have a return ticket, and I've been on the road literally for years. I feel like I'm really living my life, knowing that this month I'm in Asia, next month Africa - that's a rare opportunity, and I appreciate it every day. The only reason to set an alarm has nothing to do with a morning meeting, and only to do with the next flight you have to take.
Travel is different for everyone... But one thing that all these bloggers can agree on is that travel gives you something important, something that changes who you are. To travel is to live. So, what does travel mean to you?
