Who is influencing MY travel?

My idea of travel has always been some kind of fantasy for me.  It has been a constant dream that never seems to get closer to me.  Like driving down the highway, to a place you have never been.  You are alert and patiently waiting for the exit the GPS is screaming at you to take.  Although no matter how long you drive, you never find the exit.  You just keep saying, “a little bit further, it has to be coming up.”  Traveling is something I love the thought of doing, and I think that a few authors we have talked about in class has made this seem more real to me than ever before. 

Pico Iyer’s description of traveling could not be truer.  In the first line of his article ‘Why We Travel’, Iyer states, “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.” I cannot agree more with this statement.  I feel that for me, traveling is just that, an escape from my reality.  Anytime I would dream of a new destination, more time than not it is to drive me from where I am.  I seek for adventure.  I want to feel that feeling you get when you finally know who you are, where you are suppose to be, and what you are suppose to be doing.  I want to feel the magical ‘aha’ moment.   I think this is why I love reading and analyzing Iyer, he talks of these types of moments.  In every place he finds himself, Iyer is always going in to great detail over every aspect in the atmosphere. This is what makes traveling writing work.  You want your readers to feel like they are experiencing every moment right alongside you. Most importantly, you want them to develop a feeling inside themselves that makes them remember you; you need to give them something to connect with.  In travel writing, you must give your readers something to feel, Iyer does just that. 

            I really enjoyed Twain.  I’m not sure if it was his actual writing technique or the story he created.  Because traveling is fantasy to me, I become overwhelmed with the descriptions. In Roughing it, Twain discusses his travels to a new place that was undiscovered.  In today’s society, the reality of finding undiscovered land is impossible.  However, reading Twain’s chapters really stuck with me.  This is how I feel when traveling myself.  Though our world has been discovered, it is all new to me.  That is exactly how I want to do my own travelogue.  Every inch of what I encounter will be new and different from the area that I have grown up.