The Tao of Travel

 The Tao of Travel

Against all odds¹, I became a world traveler in my 25th year.

It began, as all things inevitably² do, with a girl. I thought it was ever-lasting love. She was setting out for a year abroad — a summer in Germany, then an academic year in England. I decided³, halfway⁴ through our summer apart, that I’d join her in England.

Ah, youth.

The relationship didn’t even last until my departure date, but with tickets bought, baggage acquired, traveler’s cheques already paid for, I decided, “Why not?”

Best decision I ever made.

What I learned in my year abroad, besides the lessons of the healing of a broken heart and the awakening⁵ of a real relationship (for in London I met the woman I’d be with the next 7 years), besides the proper way to indicate the number “two” to a British person (hold your thumb and forefinger⁶ up; the typical US “V” with the index and middle finger means something rather else indeed in Britain, especially if your palm is facing you), besides the joys of hostel⁷ living and on-the-cheap backpacking (ah, Prague…) — what I learned was something simple and liberating⁸, something I call “the Tao of Travel”.

The Tao of Travel is short — no epic⁹ poems here to pass down through the centuries, no book-length treatises¹⁰ explaining the finer points of language, no silky-voiced narrator reading the audiobook. It goes, simply, like this:

“What the [expletive] do I care?”

I take it you’ll work out which expletive easily enough — it’s hardly the most important part. Not worth offending anyone’s content filter over. You could, really, drop it, or replace it with “heck” or “doodlydoo”. In my life, though, it was definitely an expletive.

Now, that may seem simple, and it is — but not too simple. It was a kind of mantra I chanted to myself when I was about to excuse myself out of the very kinds of experiences I had decided to travel for in the first place.

Here’s an example: It’s 11:00 pm. Pubs in London close at 11:00 (or did when I was there, circa 1996), and I have to be at work at 7:00 am. But clubs are open several hours later, if you don’t mind the price of admission and the exorbitant¹¹ cost of beer (served in bottles, not from draught). Inevitably, someone suggests we hit a club.

My inward response: “Well, I have to get home, I have to go to work tomorrow and if I stay out late I’ll be tired and cranky and… eh, what the [expletive] do I care?”

My outward response: “Sure, let’s do it!” Because, really, did I come to London to chop tomatoes for sandwiches (I worked in the cafe at the National Gallery), or did I come to hit late-night clubs in Camden Town?

The Tao of Travel is, I think, a fair sight more compelling than that old chestnut¹², “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. First of all, the Romans drive really small cars like insane people, and I don’t even own a really small car. Second of all, I think traveling should be about something more than doing what the locals do.

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I mean, don’t even think about doing what the tourists do. I’m not advocating that horror. But traveling is about experiencing things new and fresh — something the locals simply can’t do. After all, you are a local, when you’re at home. How exciting is that?

And really, going well beyond what the locals do is not only valuable for you, the traveler, it’s valuable for the locals themselves. Travelers — real travelers, travelers with a sense of derring-do and adventure, and a bit of the Tao of Travel about them — give people a chance to show off, to experience their everyday surroundings as if they were fresh and new. You can easily take that old ruin on the side of the hill for granted — it is, after all, just a place where teenagers go to drink and make out — until some traveler passing through asks you what it is. Ah, there’s a story to be told…

But that story only gets told to the traveler who asks himself (or herself), when faced with a hundred reasons why this side-trip or that diversion or those few more hours out in the face of a busy day are a bad idea, asks herself (or himself), “what the [expletive] do I care?”

And that’s the Tao of Travel.

Or at least my Tao of Travel. With summer — and that means vacations — fast approaching, we here at Lifehack decided to devote this month to the theme of travel. So for the next few weeks, look for tips, advice, and maybe, just maybe, a little Tao.

1 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

2 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

5 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。

6 forefinger   

n.食指

参考例句：

• He pinched the leaf between his thumb and forefinger.他将叶子捏在拇指和食指之间。
• He held it between the tips of his thumb and forefinger.他用他大拇指和食指尖拿着它。

7 hostel   

n.（学生）宿舍，招待所

参考例句：

• I lived in a hostel while I was a student.我求学期间住在青年招待所里。
• He says he's staying at a Youth Hostel.他说他现住在一家青年招待所。

8 liberating   

解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Revolution means liberating the productive forces. 革命就是为了解放生产力。
• They had already taken on their shoulders the burden of reforming society and liberating mankind. 甚至在这些集会聚谈中，他们就已经夸大地把改革社会、解放人群的责任放在自己的肩头了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

9 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

10 treatises   

n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many treatises in different languages have been published on pigeons. 关于鸽类的著作，用各种文字写的很多。 来自辞典例句
• Many other treatises incorporated the new rigor. 许多其它的专题论文体现了新的严密性。 来自辞典例句

11 exorbitant   

adj.过分的；过度的

参考例句：

• More competition should help to drive down exorbitant phone charges.更多的竞争有助于降低目前畸高的电话收费。
• The price of food here is exorbitant. 这儿的食物价格太高。

12 chestnut   

n.栗树，栗子

参考例句：

• We have a chestnut tree in the bottom of our garden.我们的花园尽头有一棵栗树。
• In summer we had tea outdoors,under the chestnut tree.夏天我们在室外栗树下喝茶。