Travel Less; Home Needs You
Travel makes us anonymous, which can be a gift for a moment, but a curse for a life.
Our passports can feel like our social resumes, where we collect stamps (of approval) and (Instagram) stories.
We enjoy traveling for how it engages our senses in profound ways. I’ll never forget the sight of the Waimea Canyon or the taste of jamon iberico in Barcelona.
Traveling lets us break free from our normal responsibilities to overdose on novelty. We leave the mundane to dance with magic.
I’ve had the privilege of visiting 10 countries in my lifetime — 11 if you count Hawaii for how distant and exotic it is. From eating pain au chocolat in Paris to paragliding in Innsbruck, experiences abroad have provided me with memories I’ll have forever — and social flexes (I’ve already shared four travel experiences in two paragraphs.)
By changing my place and pace for a moment, travel helps me examine my life. And brushing against strangers, what Koreans call “in yeon,” has let me observe and absorb cultures beyond my Atlanta bubble. I envy the communal mindset in Panama, the slow pace of Spain, and the kindness of Jamaica.
Travel has made me better.
But I’m asking you to squash your travel bug.
Humans are restless creatures. The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
In the West, we’ve normalized our restlessness by making busy our badge of honor. And we’re prone to measure our worth by what we produce.
Like sharks, we can’t stop moving. Unlike sharks, we look in the mirror daily. And when we look, the last thing we want to see is ourselves alone in a quiet room. So we keep moving, afraid of what will happen if we stop. We plan trips, and while we’re on trips, we plan the next one.
We treat trips like Rockefeller treated money — when asked “how much is enough” we say, “just a little bit more.”
It’s why our travel list can look like our libraries — always growing at a quicker rate than we can move through.
Our bodies know we need to sit still. So does Silicon Valley. It’s why meditation and yoga are booming industries, with apps and gurus helping us make progress in sitting quietly. Yet, we’re still in a loneliness epidemic.
We’re not ok with ourselves. Because we need more than self-help tools to experience a connected and fulfilled life; we need home.
The neglected tradeoff of travel
The two tradeoffs we consider when planning a trip are expenses and time. Can my wallet and calendar afford this? We rarely consider a third tradeoff, and it’s the area of life that leads to the most fulfillment: relationships.
Traveling is a decision to say no to everyone at home.
Sometimes traveling means we’ll miss milestones, like friends’ birthdays and engagements. Other times it means missing out on the unavoidable times hardships hit your community. Breakups, sickness, loss of loved ones. You can’t plan for these. And we shouldn’t avoid traveling out of fear of what will happen at home without us. We don’t have that much control anyways.
But I’m suggesting we at least consider a new question while planning our trips. A question beyond money and time.
The question is this: What’s the relational tradeoff I’m making by leaving home right now?
Travel makes us miss out on drops in the bucket
From weekend getaways to sabbaticals, every trip causes us to be physically unavailable for our core people. Sure, you may only take two weeks of PTO, but how many weekends are you out of town?
The lack of our availability goes beyond milestones and hardships.
When we’re not home, we miss out on the compouding effects of ordinary moments with our community. Slow brunches, late nights, and for me, church services.
These small touchpoints are what my pastor call “drops in the bucket.”
Showing up for each other in the humdrum of normalcy seem insignificant for a while, but over time, they add up to a weightiness of meaningful friendships and a life of substance.
Travel makes it harder to be known
Every human wants to be seen, known, and loved. But travel makes us anonymous, which can be a gift for a moment, but a curse for a life.
In the last episode of “Parts Unknown,” just before he took his life, Anthony Bourdain is sitting alone in Hong Kong when he says, “It’s a gift, a dream, a curse...The best thing, the happiest thing, yet also the loneliest thing in the world.”
We’re in a loneliness epidemic, and I’m not sure travel is helping. Because it’s people at home who are best suited to truly see, know, and love you. It’s physical presence paired with long time horizons that lead to rich relationships and a sense of belonging. There’s power in staying home.
In The Second Mountain, David Brooks says, “Personal, social, and emotional freedom—when it becomes an ultimate end—absolutely sucks. It leads to a random, busy life with no discernible direction, no firm foundation, and in which, as Marx put it, all that’s solid melts to air. It turns out that freedom isn’t an ocean you want to spend your life in. Freedom is a river you want to get across so you can plant yourself on the other side—and fully commit to something.”
Many of us use our freedoms to travel, looking for transcendent experiences. But we return home and realize what we really want more than experiences is direction and to be deeply known. A commitment to showing up for the same people combats loneliness and creates clarity better than a life committed to traveling.
The forgotten ingredient of self-discovery: home
We’ve convinced ourselves that traveling is the best journey to find our true selves. Sabbaticals have been around for thousands of years, but the expectation of them has evolved. They’re now more than a season to rest and recharge. They now hold the expectation of becoming enlightened. People travel to not only find their next move, but to discover themselves.
Disovering yourself takes two elements: self-reflection and community. Travel hyperfocuses on the former and neglects the latter.
If we want to discover more of ourselves, we’re better off committing to a place and people group. Strangers in cafes don’t know the depths of you. Your people at home do. You need consistent time with the same people you trust to be seen and known on a deep level.
Self-discovery takes a community committed to speaking truth to you in love.
A better way to travel: bring home with you
F. Scott Fitzgerald once invited Ernest Hemingway on a trip to Lyon, France. It was supposed to be a short and simple trip. The plan was to take the train from Paris to Lyon, pick up Fitzgerald’s car, and drive it back to Paris. The trip was a complete bust. In an age before iPhones, they couldn’t find each other and were separated from the start. They got in drunken debates. And it rained constantly while they drove in a car with no roof. Hemingway’s takeaway in A Moveable Feast was “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
That’s my plan. I hope to always travel, but I now plan on reducing the relational tradeoff of it by traveling with those I love most. I plan to bring home with me.
— Luke Baker
P.S. A brief word for Jesus-followers like me:
A conviction of Heaven crushes travel FOMO. There’s no need to carry a restless urge to visit New Zealand in this lifetime. (Praise God if you can!) But a newer Zealand awaits. And you’ll have eternity to explore it. The more convinced you are of eternity, the less pressure you’ll feel to rack up countries like Rockefeller.