In the last chapter we saw what travel does to our minds. Now I ask what exactly the traveller brings home with him at the end of the road. For travel is, before anything else, a school; but a school which writes its lessons not upon a blackboard, but upon the soul.
The oldest example of this “journey for the sake of learning” is the one the Qur’an relates in the story of Moses (AS) and al-Khidr (AS). Moses, although he was himself a great prophet, set out in search of a knowledge which was not to be found in his own land. He took upon himself the weariness and the hunger of the road, and said that he would not rest until the two seas met. This story tells us that certain kinds of knowledge can be found only upon the road and not at home; and that to learn them one must tear oneself away from the comfort of the familiar and accept the hardship of the unfamiliar.
The first great lesson of travel is the knowing of oneself. So long as a person remains within the safe enclosure of his birthplace, he never knows what he is capable of. But when, in an unfamiliar city, he is obliged to solve a problem, to find a way and to master a fear, he discovers all at once that he is far more capable than he had supposed. Specialists and experienced travellers agree that this is the most important thing travel teaches: self-confidence, independence, and the ability to solve problems. One study has found that nearly half of all travellers felt greater self-confidence after a journey taken alone.
The second lesson is the widening of the horizon and the cultivation of empathy. Someone who has seen only one way of living supposes that it is the one right way. But when the traveller sees for himself that other peoples, with other customs, other food and other beliefs, are just as happy and just as human, his unripe judgements collapse and give way to understanding and to tolerance. In one psychological study, travellers said that travel had given them “a wider view of life”; one of them said that he had come to understand how large the world is, and that everyone’s life goes on regardless of his own troubles. And it is a remarkable thing that this same widening of the horizon is often accompanied by a wave of gratitude; seeing the hardship of other people’s lives, the traveller better appreciates what he has, and may well find a solution which had never before entered his imagination.
The third lesson is humility before greatness and before the passing of time. The great poet of Persia, Khayyam, has an image that will never fade: when you set foot upon a meadow, know that this green may have grown from dust which was once the kohl upon the eye of some beautiful person. Every particle of the dust we walk upon was once a human being with thoughts and with longings; and so one should not tread upon nature out of pride or indifference, for every plant that grows is in truth the continuation of another life which returned to the earth and put out shoots once more. The traveller, who upon the road comes face to face with the ruins of civilisations, with ancient burial grounds and with mountains millions of years old, cannot help but reflect upon his own smallness and upon the transience of life — and this very reflection frees him from vanity and calls him to be grateful for the present moment.
And Saadi has poured this same feeling into a single line, where he says: O caravan, go slowly, for the ease of my soul is departing. The traveller knows that something of him is left behind upon the road, and that something new comes with him.
But travel is not only an individual experience; it is a thread which binds the traveller to his people. When you go upon a journey you are in fact leaving your homeland, and those who love you send their gifts and their good wishes with you, so that upon the road you may remember how you grew and where you belong; they make their affection the provision of your journey, so that the way may be easier for you. And when you return, you bring a token for those you love — as though they too had been travelling with you, and as though you had carried the memory of them everywhere. But that token is not merely a souvenir; it is a sign of what you gained upon the journey. For in truth, what you bring back from the road — whether it be knowledge, or maturity, or a new friendship — is the mirror of your own capacity and your own worth.
And finally, travel places a moral responsibility upon the traveller’s shoulders. It is said in the teachings of Islam that one should not travel except in complete salamah — in complete soundness. And soundness has two meanings: both the health of the body and of the understanding, and submission to the law of truth and of right conduct. A journey must not be accompanied by heedlessness or by wrongdoing; for upon the road you are the representative of your people and of your family. You carry their greeting and their message with you, and upon your return you must bring back, as a gift to your own people, the answer to that greeting and the message of peace and affection from the peoples of the world. The true traveller is, in fact, an ambassador between two peoples; a bridge which, with every coming and going, brings down a little of the wall of estrangement between nations.
So the greatest gift of a journey is not something you place in a suitcase, but the new person you have become upon returning: a little wiser, a little humbler, a little kinder, and a little closer to the dignity of being human.
And yet, if travel teaches us all this, a question remains which the next chapter takes up: what does a good journey — one which bears these fruits — actually look like?
Sources: the Holy Qur’an, Surah al-Kahf (verses 60–65); the themes of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam; Saadi, Ghazaliyat; the Islamic teachings on the etiquette of travel and on “soundness”; psychological research on travel and personal growth (Mitas and colleagues, 2012; Leisure Sciences); a report in Psychology Today; the findings of specialists and world travellers on the lessons of travel; a Booking.com survey.