Hi everyone,
Today I want to talk about traveling again but the traveling time itself (for example, the time you spend in airports or on planes, in buses etc.) (If you want to read about the benefits of traveling to different destinations, check my post here). I am writing this post because I will travel across the ocean tomorrow and one of the things I am most excited about is the fact that I will spend a lot of time in airports and on planes. I genuinely feel happy about this. This post will be based on what I experience in my long flights (13-ish hours) from Turkey to the US and vice versa, but it applies to any long-enough travel.
Then, obviously, I asked myself why I like being on planes so much? Or buses. Or cars on a road trip. I have two answers to this question so far.
One is that traveling gives me a huge opportunity for self-reflection. I tend to travel long distances at least in several months, so I pile up some experiences in those months. When I am on a plane, I have a lot of time to think about the past several months and evaluate them. Can I not do this evaluation at home? I personally can’t. At least not as well. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I want to do something all the time, so it is hard for me to spend enough time on such self-reflection. When I am on a plane, I don’t have many chances but to sit for long hours. So, what am I going to do all this time? Reflect…
The second reason why I like flying is that they always signal a new beginning for me. When we travel, we head to a place we have not been for a while. So, I think I get the sense that I am refreshed. For example, I will fly to Turkey tomorrow. I have not been in that country for the last few months, so I see this as the start of a temporary change from my usual schedule. That is exciting. Airports and planes are the tools that helps this change happen, so they are also exciting.
Do you like the time you spend on transportation vehicles? Does the travel time mean anything to you? If so, what? Or are you one of those people who want the travel time to be as short as possible (and you would prefer to be beamed to places if it was possible)? Let’s talk about the time we spend on travel today.