I loved reading what Iyer had to say about travel. What resonated with me the most was how he related traveling to love. He wrote, "For if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you can't quite speak the language, and you don't know where you're going, and you're pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you're left puzzling over who you are and who'm you've fallen in love with" (3). The feelings you get when you're traveling to a brand new place resemble the feelings of love, and I have experienced this when I travel on vacation with my family and friends.
Another thing that resonated with me was when Iyer talked about travel as showing us the sights, values, and issues we have about ourselves that we might usually ignore. Through traveling, we travel to moods and states of mind that we don't necessarily visit often.
One last thing I liked about Iyer's essay was the idea that all the significant movement we ever take is internal. We don't have to physically travel the world to have a journey. Journeys can be meeting new people, watching a movie, or reading a book. I think this is important to note, especially for people who can't afford to travel to extravagant places.
-Rachael Adkins
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