Embarking on a Different Kind of Journey in 2025: The Philosophy of Travelogues

As the calendar turns to 2025, I reflect profoundly on the nature of travel, a topic that feels particularly personal after the year I've had. In 2024, I traveled to over 24 countries. It was a year marked by movement—crossing borders, attending meetings, and staying in hotels that began to blur into one another. The privilege of seeing so much of the world is something I will always treasure, but if I'm honest, the pace was relentless. Jet lag, time zone differences, and work demands meant that while my passport was filled with stamps, the sense of connection to the places I visited sometimes felt fleeting.

While accumulating experiences, I often wondered: How much did I truly experience? Did I take time to understand the essence of the places I visited, or was I passing through? The hurried nature of it all made me question what travel means. Is it about seeing the world, or is it about engaging with it on a deeper level? Is it about collecting destinations, or is it about allowing those destinations to transform you?

As the year ended, these questions stayed with me, inspiring me to approach 2025 with a different journey in mind. This year, I want to focus not on physical travel but on immersing myself in the stories of others who have traveled before me. I want to explore travelogues—those timeless accounts of journeys that capture the landscapes visited and the transformations experienced along the way.

We often think of travel as a form of escape—a way to leave behind the routines and constraints of daily life. And yet, when I think about the great past travelers, I realize that for them, travel was rarely about escape. Instead, it was about connection. It was about stepping into the world's vastness with curiosity and humility, seeking to see and understand.

Travel, in its most accurate form, is a profoundly philosophical act. It invites us to confront the unfamiliar, to challenge our assumptions, and to grow from the experience. As Ibn Battuta, the great Moroccan explorer of the 14th century, said: "Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller."

The travelers who wrote the great travelogues of history didn't journey to flee their lives. They ventured into the unknown to engage with the world and themselves. Every step they took was not just a move across a map but a step inward toward understanding their place in the greater human story.

Mark Twain captured this sentiment beautifully in The Innocents Abroad, where he observed: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
Twain's words remind us that the purpose of travel is not simply to witness the world but to allow it to challenge and change us. If travel is a form of transformation, travelogues are its lasting record. These books allow us to step into the shoes of those who ventured into the unknown before us. Through their words, we experience their awe, struggles, and reflections. We see the world as they see it, and in doing so, we begin to see ourselves more clearly.

In 2025, I'll be exploring:

• The Travels of Marco Polo is an iconic 13th-century Asian account that offers a glimpse into a familiar and extraordinary world, blending historical narrative with a sense of wonder.
• The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, whose wit and irreverence challenge us to see the absurdity and beauty in cultural encounters, all while unpacking profound truths about humanity.
• The Travels of Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century journey through Africa, the Middle East, India, and China, filled with vivid details of the medieval world and an unyielding curiosity.
• John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley is a road trip through 1960s America with his dog Charley that reflects on identity, change, and the soul of a nation.
• Safarnameh by Nasir Khusraw is a poetic and spiritual journey through the Islamic world, offering insights into the timeless search for meaning and connection.
• The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron is a 1930s exploration of Persia and Central Asia that blends art, architecture, and humor in a lyrical narrative.
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert explores self-discovery and healing through Italy, India, and Indonesia. It reminds us of the personal journeys travel can inspire.
• A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby is a charming and humorous account of adventure in the remote mountains of Afghanistan.
• In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, a reflective and poetic exploration of one of the world's most enigmatic regions.

These travelogues remind me that travel is not just about the destinations but the stories unfolding along the way. They challenge us to think more deeply about the world and our place in it. They teach us that every journey is, at its heart, a journey of connection—not just with the places we visit but with the people we meet, the cultures we encounter, and the ideas we grapple with.

What I am seeking this year is not just to travel through the world but also through the minds and hearts of those who have gone before me. Through their words, I hope to explore distant lands and timeless truths about humanity—the desire to seek, learn, and connect.
As I read these works, I realized that every journey, no matter how far, is also inward. Ultimately, the destinations themselves are secondary to the lessons they inspire. These travelogues invite us to reflect on the universal human yearning to understand the world and our place within it.

Robert Byron reminds us of the humility required to see truly:
"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."
In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert expresses the transformative power of wandering:  "Traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, to an exaggerated degree, that I have been born to wander."
Nasir Khusraw best captures this when he writes that the soul finds its place in the world through travel.

The most incredible journey isn't about how far we go but how deeply we grow. This year, I hope to approach travel not as a way to check places off a list but as an opportunity to listen, learn, and connect—with the world, others, and myself. It's not about what I see or do but about being present and open to the stories and lessons. Ultimately, it's not the distance I cover will matter, but the depth of the journey within me and the humility I carry forward.