The Meaning of Travel
There are two amusing sayings about travel: one is that traveling means leaving the place you're sick of for a place someone else is sick of; the other is that travel means trading physical exhaustion for a fleeting feast for the eyes.
Years ago, on my first trip to West Lake, I was sitting by the shore admiring the scenery when I suddenly heard a boatman mutter, "Isn't this just a stinking puddle? What's there to look at!" I was stunned.
Every trip takes some kind of physical toll. After climbing a mountain in particular, my legs ache and my knees complain, often taking days to recover. Is travel really nothing more than trading bodily fatigue for a momentary visual treat?
Over the years, as I've visited more places, I've gradually come to understand what travel truly means.
1. Travel is a way of understanding the world
We enter this world like blank sheets of paper. The rest of our lives is a process of absorbing information from the outside world, learning to think, building knowledge and ability, and slowly rounding ourselves out.
Broadly speaking, we gather information in three ways. First, through other people—parents, family, friends, teachers, classmates, colleagues, even strangers—as well as through film, television, and audio media. Second, through reading: books, newspapers, and other texts let us learn about people and events we haven't experienced firsthand. Third, through travel: leaving familiar surroundings to step into unfamiliar ones, experiencing different landscapes, customs, and ways of life for ourselves.
These three approaches intertwine and reinforce each other. Other people's stories spark our curiosity; books give us knowledge; travel lets us experience it all firsthand. And what we see and hear on the road, in turn, helps us re-interpret things we've previously heard or read.
The more people you meet, the more you read, and the more places you go, the greater your chance of broadening your horizons, expanding your thinking, and deepening your understanding. Once you've seen different landscapes, encountered different local customs, and brushed up against different ways of thinking, you gradually realize that there isn't only one way to live—and not everyone thinks and acts the way you do.
As a result, we find it easier to understand others and easier to understand ourselves; we become more tolerant. When facing a constantly changing world, we respond with more open-mindedness and composure.
2. Travel makes knowledge concrete and vivid
What makes travel unique is being physically present. Compared with simply hearing or reading about something, seeing and feeling it yourself is far more vivid and direct, and leaves a much deeper impression.
Someone who grew up in the water towns of southern China might take it for granted that every pond grows lotus flowers—until they hear about, read about, or actually see the reeds in northern ponds and realize that their familiar scenery isn't the whole world.
Someone raised in the mountains might assume the entire world is made of rolling peaks—until they stand before an endless plain and discover that the earth can look entirely different.
A child growing up in Tianjin might naturally assume every license plate starts with the character "Jin." He could hear otherwise from his father, or read about it in a book—or he could leave Tianjin and see Hebei's "Ji" plates, Henan's "Yu" plates, and Jiangxi's "Gan" plates with his own eyes.
The same piece of knowledge feels different depending on how you acquire it. Travel gives abstract facts a tangible form, showing us not just a detail but the real environment it belongs to. Things we've seen and lived through ourselves are always the hardest to forget.
3. Travel can correct mistaken or incomplete assumptions
Information we get from others—whether spoken, or found in books, films, or online—has always been selected and filtered by whoever passed it along. Some of it is accurate; some carries misunderstandings, biases, or even deliberate distortions. Even when the facts themselves aren't wrong, selective presentation can make them misleading.
Travel doesn't guarantee we'll see the truth, but it does let us measure what we've heard and read against reality, raising questions and refining our understanding.
For example, during a certain era, the media loudly proclaimed: "The wicked American imperialists have their people living in abject misery—starving and freezing, waiting for us to rescue them." True or false? Take a trip to the U.S. and see for yourself.
Back in my school days, I traveled to Hunan and visited the Nanyue Martyrs' Shrine on Mount Heng. Reading the names of fallen soldiers carved into the steles, I learned that the shrine commemorates Nationalist troops who died during the War of Resistance Against Japan. That led me to dig deeper into several major campaigns and historical events from the war. To my surprise, these topics were barely mentioned in the history textbooks I'd studied at the time. I had no choice but to re-examine the so-called "history" I'd been taught.
I also learned that the shrine had been damaged three times over the decades: Japanese troops destroyed its facilities in 1944; it was vandalized again in 1953; and during the Cultural Revolution in 1966, it suffered severe destruction once more. The damage inflicted by the Chinese themselves rivaled, if not exceeded, that done by the Japanese army. After the Cultural Revolution ended, the shrine was gradually protected and restored.
In 2026, I returned to Mount Heng and noticed the visiting rules for the shrine had changed: visitors going only to the martyrs' shrine can now enter without buying a scenic area ticket, though they must observe a time limit.
In the rise and fall of the Nanyue Martyrs' Shrine, I saw more than the fate of a single historic site—I saw how society's attitude toward historical memory has shifted. China has changed through many twists and turns, gradually moving toward a more open society. Plenty of questions still deserve reflection, but as the old poem goes, "Green hills cannot block the river; after all, it flows east."
Travel gives us information beyond what books and media offer, and the chance to witness historical and social change through firsthand observation across different eras. Everything from sweeping shifts in civilization and national affairs to the basics of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation can become a starting point for thought.
4. The meaning of travel goes beyond scenery
An old Chinese saying goes, "Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles." There's wisdom in that, but treating travel merely as a supplement to reading falls short. In my view, beyond sightseeing, travel holds at least three layers of meaning:
First, understanding the world. Stepping out of familiar surroundings to encounter different geographies, cultures, and lifestyles builds knowledge and broadens perspective.
Second, correcting assumptions. Comparing what we see with our own eyes against what we've heard and read allows us to form independent judgments rather than passively accepting what others tell us.
Third, observing change. Returning to the same place in different eras, we see more than scenery—we see historical shifts, social progress and setbacks, and the reflections those changes provoke.
"Travel means leaving the place you're sick of for a place someone else is sick of." Whenever I come across that line, I smile knowingly. In fact, years ago, I grasped the very same idea from that boatman at West Lake: "Isn't this just a stinking puddle? What's there to look at?" That, too, is part of what travel means. To locals, West Lake may be nothing more than an ordinary stretch of water; to a visitor who has come a long way, it's a long-dreamed-of destination. The same place holds different meanings for different people, shaped by their experiences and perspectives.
Travel isn't just about looking at scenery others have grown used to. It's about stepping into a world you don't yet know, gathering new information, deepening your understanding, correcting entrenched assumptions, and continually refining yourself through observation and reflection. That is the true meaning of travel.