the dream seemed inaccessible just a few decades ago. We thought it was reserved for a few marginal adventurers or lottery winners. But things have changed. Long-distance travel is now within the reach of almost everyone.? How does the idea of taking a long-distance trip germinate? Why do we decide to leave? What are the barriers that prevent us from getting started? At what age, with whom and for how long should you leave? What do we finally get out of it?
WHAT IS A WORLD TOUR?
According to Wikipedia, a circumnavigation of the globe is a journey that consists of traveling completely and in a given direction around the globe until returning to its starting point. Going around the world does not mean seeing all the countries of the world, or even all the continents.
TV shows like J’Irai Dormir Chez Vous and Beijing Express have popularized an image of the traveler who leaves on a shoestring budget, staying with locals and hitchhiking. This is of course possible, but in the end this only concerns a minority of travellers.
The average world traveler leaves for a year and visits around ten countries, mainly in Asia and Latin America. He most often travels by plane between continents. Once there, he takes local buses, eats in small stalls or street restaurants, sleeps in cheap accommodation and sometimes with locals. Rather than traveling by plane, some choose to travel by bicycle, motorhome, sailboat, van…
Many travelers leave for a long period without necessarily doing a world tour strictly speaking. You can very well leave for six months or a year just in South America, Asia or Africa and live an equally extraordinary experience.
When traveling around the world, we travel in very different ways. We have time to improvise, to change plans, to linger in the places we like. We are also quite surprised, when we start to deviate from the beaten track, to realize that many other travelers we meet have also left for a very long time. There is thus a real small community of world travelers who meet occasionally during their trip.
THE MOVIE GENERATION AROUND THE WORLD
Florian Mosca & Laurent Lingelser portrayed 10 travelers who left to experience a period of homelessness.
can arise differently for everyone. They have travel in their blood. Others, on the contrary, have not had the chance to have traveling parents and are thirsty to discover the world.
From an early age, thanks to cartoons like The Mysterious Cities of Gold, we have been fascinated by distant civilizations. The programs I will go to sleep at your place or Nus et culottés and the stories of adventurers like Mike Horn or Sylvain Tesson also feed our appetite from elsewhere.
And then, sometimes, our first distant trips make us want to go longer. Discussions with friends or travel encounters who have taken a long trip themselves are often a trigger for embarking on the adventure.
When you’re in a steady job with friends and family you see regularly, you end up settling into a certain routine.
Traveling far and long forces us to step out of our comfort zone. We inevitably find ourselves alone at times, lost in a very exotic place of which we know neither the language nor really the culture. We lose our bearings. Actions as simple as finding your way, taking a bus, or buying food can sometimes turn out to be quite complicated.
Achieving it is a small success, a successful challenge that provides a certain pleasure to which one can even become a little addicted. By getting out of your comfort zone, you discover what you are capable of. We understand our limits and we often exceed them.
When you ask someone how they’re doing, how many times do you hear “It’s a bit of a race these days!” ? We live constantly at a hundred miles an hour.. There are no more constraints. You can take the time to do a two-week trek if you feel like it, to admire a sunset or simply do nothing.
Traveling around the world, we meet people from very different cultures who share with us their conception of the world, their values, their spirituality and their way of life. Doing couchsurfing or wwoofing allows you to immerse yourself even better in the daily life of the people of the countries you visit. It is an unparalleled personal enrichment. You inevitably gain a greater openness of mind and a better understanding of the world and how it works. Meetings challenge our own models.
TO MEET OTHER TRAVELERS
In our everyday life, we tend to meet people who are ultimately very similar to us. Traveling allows you to get out of your social context. It is much easier to approach others when you know that you will probably never see them again. A trip around the world is therefore conducive to encounters, sometimes even romantic
