The Problem with Travel as a Means of Escape

I opened my browser and typed into the search bar: LAX to SYD. 

The cursor blinked a few times before dates, times, and prices began to flood the screen. All I had to do was book the flight. It was so simple. Just like that—in a few clicks I could be on my way to breezy beaches, warm water, and endless nature. It never failed to surprise me how easy it was to escape. 

That’s when I stopped myself. Escape.

I was doing it again. 

When it comes to fight or flight, I tend to fall into the latter camp—and I take the “flight” thing quite literally. If I find myself feeling restless or uneasy or discontented, I turn to travel. I arm myself with a boarding pass (sometimes multiple) that will take me somewhere I’ve never been. It’s my golden ticket away, to another place where I can dissolve into a new reality and forget my worries. 

But the truth is, sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m running toward something or away from it.  

For my entire adult life, I’ve never been able to shake this feeling—some may call it wanderlust. Others, restlessness. It’s this deep knowing that there’s more—a yearning, a gnawing at the insides, a searching. 

For a long time, travel was the only thing that satisfied that disquiet in me. It assuaged the discomfort and distracted me with shiny new experiences. It felt like a cup of coffee—it awakened me, energized me. I felt a deep sense of aliveness, of being present.

When I was younger, I thought that was what I needed. I perceived it as a matter of cause and effect. Restlessness → Travel → No Restlessness. Problem solved. 

But the problem was that the problems always ended up coming back. The feelings of aliveness were always temporary, fleeting. I’d return home. The exotic foods and bustling markets and picturesque backdrops soon became still shots on a hard drive and hurried scribbles in a notebook—sepia memories, half-lost to time. I returned to routine. Eventually, all the old feelings of restlessness would reemerge, as if waking from dormancy. 

And in a sense, that’s exactly what was happening.

As humans, we’re incredibly good at self-deception. Sometimes what we’re searching for isn’t always what we truly want. When we think we want to buy a flight to Switzerland or Morocco or Chile, deep down we may not be searching for the snow-capped mountains and camel rides in the desert and sun-kissed wineries of South America. Sometimes what we’re searching for is much closer to home—right in our own heads, as a matter of fact. 

I’ve since learned that if our minds aren’t at ease when we leave to travel, we’ll likely find them waiting for us in the same state when we return home. Eventually the novelty of travel wears off, we slip back into our day-to-day routines, and the discontent returns like weeds creeping through the cracks of a sidewalk.

Unfortunately, the things we refuse to confront don’t go away simply because they’re out of sight (as much as we would like them to). Rather, we have to move toward the very things that scare us—our fears and insecurities and shortcomings. We have to look at them head on, sit with the discomfort, and wrestle with them. We have to put in the time to do the mental and emotional excavation. There is no other way. Whatever we run from—a lack of purpose or connection or self love—one way or another, they always find their way back to us.

This year more than ever has forced us to confront this fact. With the pandemic limiting travel, we no longer have the luxury of simply buying a flight when we’re in need of a getaway. In fact, these days the extent of travel is almost entirely restricted to trips around our own neighborhood. Quarantine has made escape, on a global level, a rarity—and in some places, not possible at all.

In non-pandemic times, travel can serve as a quick and easy band-aid to restlessness. But in order to find a true solution, we have to understand the root cause. And we will only find that by taking a look inside ourselves—not in a one-way ticket around the world.

It took me years to learn this.

I remember a friend once pointed out that too many people go searching for their life partner in entirely the wrong way—they expect the person to complete them or make them whole. She told me that instead, they should first write a list of all the things they want in a partner—kind, funny, athletic, intelligent, etc.—then see how many of the boxes they check off themselves. The point being: you can’t expect someone to check all your boxes if you haven’t first put in the time to work on yourself and become the best version of who you can be. In other words, you have to start with you.

The same is true for travel. We can’t expect travel to be this magic bullet that will solve all our problems. We have to work on ourselves first. 

Ultimately, travel should add to our lives, not reinvent them. Travel is meant to enrich us as humans—to enhance, amplify, and deepen who we already are. That doesn’t mean we have to come fully baked or have everything figured out. Far from it. Truth is, we’ll almost always have some level of disquiet within us—whether that’s feeling unfulfilled or hurt or directionless. But we shouldn’t expect travel to solve any of those for us—that’s work we have to do on our own. 

Admittedly, I still sometimes catch myself looking at flights when I feel that restlessness, that searching feeling coming back. But the difference now is that I recognize when that thought pattern is happening—when I’m using travel as a means of escape instead of a way to enhance. I’ve learned that travel isn’t meant to be used as a cure or a crutch. It’s not meant to repair or rebuild or remake. Over the years, I’ve gotten better at understanding that distinction. I’ve learned to take the time to question why I want to travel in the first place and to uncover my true intention.

Travel enriches life in a way that few other activities do. It broadens the mind, humbles the ego, and creates a sense of connection to people and places we might never have otherwise felt. It has the potential to expand our perspectives, force us outside of our comfort zones, and teaches us that not knowing is an entirely okay place to be. We become more open and independent and self-reliant. We learn how to be present.

In the end, we can—and should—expect travel to enrich our lives. It’s a powerful force to soften the edges of long-held beliefs and assumptions. I’ve experienced firsthand how travel can work miracles on our human shortcomings. But I’ve also learned that solving the disquiet of the mind is not one of them.