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Overview
In this compact collection of twenty essays, The School of Life applies their signature mix of philosophy, practicality, and wit to the act of travel. We pursue travel as a means to make ourselves happy-so why do we often find ourselves bored, anxious, or lonely when on a trip?
This is a guidebook not to geographical locations, but to the philosophy of travel itself. In a series of genial essays, it examines why we travel, how we choose where to go, what we can do when we get there, and how to make the most of our time away. This compact book is beautifully designed to take with us on our journeys. Ultimately, it reminds us to practice that most illusive and vital skill of all: how to relax.
- A COMPACT AND PHILOSOPHICAL GUIDE TO THE ART OF TRAVELING
- 20 ESSAYS TO INSPIRE WANDERLUST
- INCLUDES BLANK PAGES FOR NOTES and a built in pocket for saving mementos.
- FULL COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781999917968 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The School of Life |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2019 |
| Pages: | 132 |
| Sales rank: | 1,096,230 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.90(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions.
The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 389,000 Facebook followers, 174,000 Instagram followers and 166,000 Twitter followers.
The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.
Read an Excerpt
Travelling for Perspective
There’s a long tradition of going travelling in search of things we lack. In the eighteenth century, well-off young English men would take trips to Paris and Rome to acquire more elegant manners and study Classical history; today we might travel to find sunshine or nature. But there are many things we struggle with beyond our inability to understand Roman culture or endure a long, wet winter – and travel can help us with them.
A central issue is that we are constantly at risk of feeling disenchanted with our circumstances. At a personal level, we are continually exposed to the enviable lives of others; our imaginations are haunted by our comparative lack of success. At a more general level, our societies often appear fundamentally unimpressive: our institutions look compromised, our media seems coarse and sensationalist, our cities feel chaotic. There is, apparently, little to be grateful for.
In theory – of course – we know that can’t be entirely true. We know, in the abstract, that we’re lucky to have enough to eat and a roof over our heads. But such reminders feel emotionally unreal and usually have little impact on their own. For the truth to hit home, we may have to immerse ourselves in true poverty and a genuinely dysfunctional society.
We may need to travel to the large parts of the world where people live, on average, on $500 a year or less. We may need to visit a place where it’s normal for the police to extort money from you; where a newspaper editor is likely to be arrested for criticising authority; where government is self-evidently tied to violence and corruption; where the opposition is an armed faction; where a fair trial is a rarity; where luxury would be clean sheets or a tube of toothpaste; where there might be excrement in your food or a dead rat under your bed. A city or country where people maddened by toothache pull out their own teeth; where horrendous infections are commonplace; where large numbers of children receive almost no formal education; where, if there is a school, it is quite probable that those in charge are syphoning off the funds; where sewers run openly through the streets; where people spend their days picking over the refuse in huge dumps. We may well end up deeply moved. As importantly, we are invited to change our perceptions of our own lives, to renew our appreciation of so much that we’d taken for granted: a toilet that flushes, a washing machine, space to ourselves, a pleasant lunch. And we may derive a new sense of how profound and powerful the achievements of our own societies – for all their failings – really are.
Paradoxical thought it sounds, travels to places where the true hardships of existence are grimly evident can provide a needed education in gratitude. Our encounter with the reality of the lives of so many others pushes us towards a more accurate perspective on our own condition. Like many great artworks in elegant galleries, they teach us to see – and admire – aspects of the world we usually inhabit that we had scarcely noticed before. And they do this with rather more conviction and lasting impact than any canvas on a wall.
Table of Contents
How to Choose a DestinationWhat Is ‘Exotic’?
The Suspicion of Happiness
Anxiety
Small Pleasures
Water Towers
The Importance of the Sun
Travel as a Cure for Shyness
The Pleasure of the Airport
The Pleasure of the Flight
Pretty Cities
The Pleasure of Otherness
The Longing to Talk to Strangers
The Vulnerability of Perfection to Emotional Troubles
The Importance of Family Holidays
The Pleasure of the Romantic Minibreak
The Little Restaurant
In Defence of Crowds
The Pleasure of Room Service
The Pleasures of Nature
Drawing Rather than Taking Photographs
Holiday Fling
Traveling for Perspective
Travel and Pilgrimages
How to Spend a Few Days in Paris
How to Come Home
The Advantages of Staying at Home
Cherishing Memories
The Shortest Trip: Going for a Walk
The Shortest Travel Quiz