Travelling, Perfect Bliss

To travel, Shakespeare said, is to die a little, but that is
when there is no return. When there is a return, travelling is
to living a little bit more, adding some more extra life to your
life. I would encourage anyone to be a traveller rather than a
tourist. The two things are habitually thought to be the same,
but they are not. A tourist sees the people, the landscapes
and the monuments of other lands. But the most enriching and,
therefore, the most important thing is not merely to see such
things but to be them. The world is a masterpiece, and today
we can travel it without headaches and without undermining our
whole existence. Everywhere we go, there is an unknown and
unexpected pleasure awaiting for us, and the adventures of our
imagination can mature into reality. Curiosity and freedom lie
behind all great journeys, and travel, even when only in
reminiscense, always has an intoxicating quality. When you leave
on a journey, it is as though as you were leaving yourself and
your world. You are light, unladen, open to experiences that
will truly broaden the circular experience of your life. To
travel is to be more. It is an encounter with "the other", a
dialogue with the radically different. You see to the depths
of whatever you gaze at, and you feel to the new down to its
slightest nuances, because the new draws you in.
The world can be narrated in an original way an infinite number
of times; and each man can narrate the world differently each
time. That is why there is really no such thing as collective
travel. On every journey, the traveller is unique as long as
he or she travels with the senses at the ready. The taciturn
and voluntarily secluded Nietzsche used to be advised by his
friends to "wash and travel". Today, even Nietzsche would wash
without waiting to be advised to do so, but not everybody
travels. And yet travelling is nowadays the most perfect bliss
there is.