Why People Like to Travel Abroad
The question why people are willing to subject themselves to the rigors of foreign travel, came to me during a very brisk walk to see a famous cathedral in one of the cities we visited, whose name I do not even remember, on our journey through the Norwegian fjords. Our ship stopped in this town for two hours, during which we had to fulfill every tourist’s duty: to find a local attraction, to take an obligatory picture and to run to another “very important point of interest”. From there we would rush back, since my wife heard a story about a woman who was late and her ship sailed without her. Though I had very limited time to take yet another picture, I managed to photograph a column with a statue of some important dude on top of it. I snapped a closer photo of the statue, so I could later look back to see that the statue was of Olav Trygverson. In Wikipedia I learned that Mr. Trygvason (a slightly different spelling) was king of Norway from 995 to 1000, and according to later sagas, the great grandson of Harold Fairhair, the first king of Norway. In the image background you can see the spire of the famous cathedral, but what you do not see in the photo (but I have images as a proof), is a McDonald’s restaurant on the left, a Burger King on the right, and a 7-Eleven on the other corner.
Why do we travel so many miles, spend a lot of money, do not sleep on the plane, suffer from jet lag for days, sleep in a tiny cabin, suffer from muscle pain from a lot of walking, and eat too much food? Just to take too many photos of yet another sunset or someone’s statue? Of course each travel experience is different. My wife talked about taking another trip to Norway where we could explore the islands and drive leisurely using a ferry from one picturesque fishing village to another (Many Norwegians do not have to catch fish any more to make a living and have converted their cottages into B & B’s). On the board of our ship we met tourists from Poland, France, Sweden, Tasmania (Australia), Italy, Wales and many from Germany. Personally, I found it slightly ironic that Germans would visit and spend their money in Norway, after their parents and grandparents were occupying forces, which along with the Soviet Army created a huge amount of damage to this beautiful country. When I told my new friend from Wales that I am going to write a story about this and asked him rhetorically, “Why do people travel?” His response was, “To meet interesting people” and then immediately added; “I did not have you in mind.” Oh well. At least he agreed to be part of one of my next photo-story projects “42 Encounters with 50+ couples”.
Stay tuned.
P.S. I decided to include mixed images for this story. The statue of Olav is located in the center of Trondheim (I encourage you to read the fascinating story of his life and the interplay in geography and politics). Over one thousand years ago, Nidaros Cathedral, which was built over the burial site of Saint Olav from 1070 to 1300, and has a remarkable history. The man I met on the street of the same city called himself a pilgrim who walked to Trondheim from Oslo (somehow he had to cross water). And the last two images are of a nice fellow traveler. Perhaps there are good reasons to travel, after all; to meet interesting people, to photograph them and to share their images with you.
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