Why I Am Leaving Again

Back To America: Return to Travel

• Setting off on a long journey Whatever the destination and mode of travel, it is the return to the roads themselves that we have missed (read the article: >). > is a long-term journey, with no planned return date: we have a one-way ticket, and that's it ... And that's already a lot for us, who had a thousand and one plans, from the most reasonable to the most outrageous, to reach the new continent: by cargo, by sailboat, biking down the Camino de Santiago to Portugal, and trying boat hitchhiking ... In short, we find ourselves very reasonable in our choices, despite what some may think! Why leave for a year? This is also a question I am often asked. I just want to respond: Why not? Because we have the chance to save money and travel easily. Because I feel free and without insurmountable constraints. I leave because I can and simply because I want to! Long-term travel brings a completely different dynamic than other trips. I discuss it in more detail in the article >.
• Returning to Latin America If the return to travel is so important, why go back to a continent >? To all those who continually ask me this question, I don't have a logical answer to provide. But must one necessarily have a good reason to decide to travel and choose their destination? Furthermore, I can guarantee that we have absolutely no >! This is, by the way, an impossible goal. For example, Peru, the country where we will start our journey, is also the one where we have spent the most time overall (6 weeks), and it still holds wonderful discoveries for us! What attracts you so much to this continent? Colors, vibes, landscapes, cultures, stories ... Far from wanting to rank continents or countries on a scale of value or interest, I simply think that some people will have a spontaneous attraction to certain regions of the world. This attraction may exist absolutely and endure, or be relative, tied to a specific moment in one's existence and evolve over time. Why are some people obsessed with Southeast Asia, India, or Australia, the United States ...? Perhaps it is due to a multitude of images recorded more or less unconsciously, creating representations about these destinations, making them more or less appealing. The reflective process on the origins of these representations can be very interesting and allow for a re-examination of them. It is the approach that Aline from NowMadNow wanted to take by going to Israel to step outside the media images and forge her own representation of this country. A journey that I greatly admire. Our approach is not as reflective: we loved our previous travels on this continent ... and far from satiating us, they have left us hungry for more, lifting a corner of the veil on everything we still have left to discover.

From the Desire to Leave to the Need to Leave Again

• The travel bug I'm often asked if I've always wanted to travel, or how this passion came to me, and does François share it with the same intensity...? In short, how were you infected by the travel bug? I also don't know how to give a coherent answer to this question (indeed!). Maybe simply because there isn't one. A passion, by definition, has nothing to do with logic. > (Blaise Pascal) I have always loved going on vacation, since I was a child. But little by little, travel took on another dimension and became more important in my life. In our lives. Travel has become a couple's project, a philosophy, and a way of thinking.
• The pain of returning to a sedentary life Many travelers know this ailment: the feeling of being a stranger in their own culture. Upon returning home, after the joy and effusions of reunions, there comes a much less pleasant phase. Like a character from Camus, the > realizes, in front of this world he has left behind while it has remained the same, just how much he himself has changed. The traveler, this stranger... Beyond physical considerations, such as sunburn or the length of hair, the returning traveler cannot explain that he is no longer quite the same as the person who left a few months before. His worldview has changed. His desires and life hopes have changed. How to imagine, once the point > crossed off from his Bucket List, that he could calmly say: Check, done! Let's return to the > now? No. Just no! Travel is not >, and to think that once the bubble of travel has been consumed, there is no other option but to return to the fold, no more adventures to realize than to settle down ... No! The traveler has changed. And this frightens him just as much as the morbid perspective of no longer wanting to travel. Travel then loses its status as > and transforms into a need. Traveling to continue to be a part of this vibrant movement. Traveling to not lose this momentum. Traveling to continue exploring the world. Traveling to stay alive. Between the difficulty of (self) expression and the difficulty of (self) understanding Along with the difficulty of expressing this feeling comes a certain barrier of incompatibility on the part of the listeners: the traveler then speaks a language that no one understands. The importance of what he has experienced and the consequences of this trip on his personal development are minimized, or even completely ignored by the majority. This strange feeling upon returning is undoubtedly the hardest part of travel. And one of the reasons that drive travelers to take off again.

I leave because!