The Immersion Method of Travel

When I took off on the road for the first time, I had no time limits and the scantest of itineraries. I thought I might head south from Seattle, perhaps even into Mexico and Central America. However, if the vagaries of chance should send me off in another direction, I was perfectly willing to ride the winds of change. In traveling alone, and with no more possessions than I could carry all day in a duffle bag without tiring, I freed myself from constraints that would otherwise hinder me from fully appreciating what was going on around me. If you travel with other people, your focus is at least partially on them and not on your immediate environs and the inhabitants thereof. I suppose it comes down to your motivations for traveling in the first place. If your aim is to have fun with the people you’ve brought with you, the world around, foreign though it might be, takes on the nature of colorfully painted backgrounds surrounding rides at theme parks, but if you travel alone, or at the most with a significant other with whom you meld into one being, you can deeply absorb the ambiance of wherever you happen to be. The experiences profoundly differ.

As an example, consider the following:

Several years ago, I read a book about a young man who spent ten years wandering the world much as I had. We’ll call him Traveling Trevor. He eventually met a woman, and they got together and settled in the United States, and Trevor gradually turned his travel experiences into a business, first by writing and publishing guidebooks, and then by starting a travel website with worldwide tours that people could sign up for. Those early books and the articles on the website emphasized the immersive method of travel that Trevor had undertaken, as had I, and as a result, his website was of interest to me. There was a forum where travelers could interact and exchange tips, ideas, and accounts of adventures in far-flung corners of the world. In addition, numerous local chapters sprang up around the country that organized events, usually at coffee shops, bars, or restaurants, where travelers could get together and share stories. At the first event I attended in Seattle, a peculiar thing happened. About a dozen people were in attendance, and for the majority of them, their travel experiences were limited to organized tours to various places. However, one attendee and I were drawn to each other. She was unlike the others. She was a fulltime traveler, a van-dweller. She lived in her van, and it was parked nearby. She’d purchased an old cargo van, gutted it, and from scratch had created a cozy home. She was a photographer, videographer, and drone pilot, and she wandered the western United States meeting people and having adventures. Immediately after we met, we recognized that we were kindred spirits and spent the rest of the meet-up talking to each other. We met at one or two other local events and also kept up an on-again-off-again email correspondence. The point, though, is that the two of us were both adherents of the immersion method of traveling, while most of the others we met merely dabbled in the nomadic experience.

As a footnote, the story of Traveling Trevor took a sad turn. For awhile, the website kept growing, the forums remained lively, and the local get-togethers continued to take place. However, Trevor eventually got weary of running the business and decided to abandon it and focus on his writing. Someone else bought it, scrapped the forum and the in-person meet-ups, and reshaped it so it exclusively featured expensive guided tours.

I miss the forums and the meet-ups.

Let me emphasize, though, that I don’t think that guided tours are wrong. If that’s the only way you can manage to visit other places, then it is far better than never going at all. However, do your best to book tours with open periods that are unscheduled, times when you can wander off by yourself, not to buy souvenirs, but rather to immerse yourself into and absorb the culture and people and particularities of the location in which you are ensconced. Take chances. Wander off. Communicate with the local residents. Seek out the heart of the place, the idiosyncrasies that make it like no other anywhere. Allow its unique spirit to nourish you and help you grow.