Travel broadens the spirit

With the onset of summer come thoughts of holidays and travel plans. Time to share some thoughts on the subject. Why do I wish to travel? Primarily, to seek spirit of place - genius locii, atmosphere, platzgeist, ambience, klimat. Seeking happiness-through-being-there. Happiness - that micro-moment when everything is right, that pleasant flavour of the mind. When I'm in that right place, those micro-moments connect up to a larger, more general sense of well-being.

This is what being on holiday should be about; improving the flavour of the mind, swelling the consciousness with beatitude. Rest, of course, yes, what's good for the body is good for the soul. But the idea of an idle fortnight in a hotel by a beach resort fills me with indifference.

Spirits of place are fickle. Walk or cycle (you'll not catch it with the same intensity sitting in a car) a few hundred metres (or less) one way or the other - and you've lost it. My sense of it is as fine-tuned as a metal detector. Moving, searching. *Paff!* There it is. Catch it, consign it to your soul*, and move on, slowly, lest you miss another such moment.

I want to seek spiritual communion with the landscape - be it rural, urban or suburban. I seek to travel to find places I don't know and yet do know - places that are replete with an instant sense of atavistic familiarity from dreams and flashbacks.

I intend to visit Scandinavia and would wish to return to the USA - backroad, small town USA; coast to coast, on to the Pacific. Canada too. I must say I have no real interest in taking myself to Africa or Asia or Australasia. Europe I'd want to see more of - in all directions. Spain, yes. But right now, time and money is limited, Poland needs to be discovered. As I recently wrote, the bicycle is the optimal way to catch the spirit of place, three times faster than walking yet three times slower than driving, not isolated from the landscape by laminated glass. I'll be back in Dobra with Eddie before too long, we both feel very comfortable there. But the Big Journeys beckon. It will be a few years, but they will happen.

* Ah yes - photography. For a pictorial record capturing spirit of place to be worthwhile, on looking at the photo, it must capture the emotional effect of being there - it must engender what I saw and felt at the time. And if others can share that feeling - then perfect.