Having read How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy and Essays in Love, I can officially say I am quite a fan of Alain De Botton's writings. So when I found The Art of Travel on a local charity store in West Hampstead in London, I bought it - it was a second hand copy and was only 99p. It would be foolish of me to not buy it. As an avid traveller (long term mover as I do not really settled in one place necessarily), I was very excited to go through the book and see what further philosophical insights he might add. But I was somewhat disappointed at the passionless manner he talks about the wonders of travel. His grasp of chosen writers/painters/artists and other notable people like Edward Hopper (who is featured a fair bit in his other bookst) is excellent for a novice art-reader like myself. But de Botton's seemingly less-than-excited attitude towards the joys of what travel is was perhaps less impressive. He started the book with his complaints about his vacation to Barbados - forgetting to tell a colleagues he is away, the one-sided swaying palm trees, the petty argument about creme caramel and so on and then questioned how in spite of being in a very exotic location, he is still plague by the same old woes. His answer was: we do not understand or know very well the art of travel. We are constantly bombarded by travel agents, brochures on where to go but not always why and how to.
I have travelled a fair bit in my life and have never once took myself to a travel agent (I certainly have encouraged anyone I know to do same). I don't believe that there is necessarily an art of travel i.e. how and why to. I mean, we all travel for very different reasons but it would be unwise to generalize why we travel I think (although this what he attempts to do). What I think is missing in this book and which I think is perhaps the most fundamental issue that should have been better discussed is - the faces and people you meet while on travels. Sure I can go to Rome and visit the sights like all the things tourists do and I might have a good time but I reckon if I wander the streets and have no set plans, I might end up finding a gem, a restaurant hidden in a hole, people whose lives differ from mine and more often that not, beautiful stories waiting to be untold. I believe people make places. Places come to life because of the very faces and people that make up its environment. Being able to fly into different countries doesn't quite mean we travelled. It only means we have arrived and the journey into discovery begins. He says, 'what we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home... the pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.'
I am not sure about this but I can only say from my own experience. Travel has brought me perspective with which I understand the world around me. I still don't know a lot of things or understand the complexities of the world we live in today. I am constantly hungry for more. But I rather move from my comfort chair and see for myself what the world and exotic corners have to offer rather than observing it through media-tinted glasses and the observations of one man (or in this case, the experiences of some expert observers).
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