I travel because...nothing. After watching "Why bother traveling"

The English title is printed on the cover of the book, "The Turk Who Loved Apples". The Chinese and English subtitles are also slightly different. The Chinese is "We set out and returned with stories", while the English is "And Other Tales of Losing My Way Around the World".

These stories are Matt’s reason to keep exploring the world. The earth is round. When you go around the world, you will eventually return to the starting point. During the journey, happiness is a choice and you must be responsible for your own happiness.

In fact, most of the time, traveling is lonely, uncomfortable, and disappointing. In Matt’s experience, traveling is sometimes something that makes one’s heart work hard, but it’s a pity that it’s not suitable for the title of a book. Traveling is not easy at all. It is not easy on your body, wallet, and soul. How to face the reality of traveling is a topic for independent travelers.

This book is not an exhaustive instruction manual, nor is it your typical travel guide. Matt writes about his travels without claiming that anyone should make the same choices, because that would be worse than self-righteousness. After all, no one is him, and it is dangerous to blindly copy behaviors and follow scripts.

If you don’t start, how will you know the result? Starting from one place and arriving at another place, spending most of the time between the two points, in a semi-boring state, this is travel. When traveling, you never really know what will happen, and plans never keep up with changes, so planning or not planning is a difficult question.

Adventure may make many travelers hesitate and set out without knowing anything. Is this really something you can do without special knowledge or training? After all, not everyone is Matt, who has traveled to five continents, sixty countries, dozens of overseas trips, and written hundreds of newspaper and magazine reports.

No matter where you are, whether you have embarked on a trip or are still living in your original life, you must think and act by yourself. Anyone can learn how to travel, live comfortably within a budget, and make sense of the world on their own.

Re-experience the basic understanding of where you are, be grateful for everything you have, freely enjoy the vastness and complexity of the world, and appreciate the world as it is, not as you imagine it to be.

After embarking on a journey, you can be frugal or luxurious, but don't forget the key point, why travel? Traveling is expensive and troublesome, so you have to learn to save money when traveling, and then what? In fact, it doesn't matter whether you save money or spend money. What matters is how and why you travel. Although it is not suitable to speak as a "saving travel expert".

As a professional traveler, Matt travels a lot because he is a New York Times money-saving travel guru. Saving money is his reason for traveling, and at the same time he wants to act like a rich man. Matt candidly describes the mistakes he has made and the tragedies he has experienced in the book, hoping to help those who open the book avoid those experiences and find their own path.

The English title of the book "The Turk Who Loved Apples" is one of the stories. This story is crucial and inspired Matt's way of looking at travel. Saving money is not an end in itself, but a tool for many travelers. It is a means to get closer to foreign lands and strangers. It is just a premise. The purpose is to open your eyes to see the world revealed by travel.

When the Turk pats his chest, smiles and says, "Apple." What he means is: "Don't worry, I'm doing what makes me happy." Remember, you must be responsible for your own happiness and joy.

A tourist or a traveler? Most tourist itineraries have one unpleasant thing in common, and that is the "sense of obligation" surrounding them. They feel that they are "expected", or even almost "ordered" to go to those famous tourist attractions and be visited. The necessity of trapping threats.

Traveling is what tourists do on vacation. It is the meaning of life for travelers. It is to go where they want to go and do what they want to do. Some people, like Matt, hope to gain a deeper understanding of people's sentiments during the trip, but have no idea what to do next and how to behave appropriately and responsibly. You may stay there for a few weeks, but you can always leave. No matter how you define your trip, you are still just a tourist.

The world is like a book, which can only be opened if you set out on a journey. Travel books are also books. Reading can replace actual travel. Sometimes the world created by words can be better than the real world. Maybe it's a little unusual for a travel writer to suggest this, but maybe it's not that unusual either. Writers always need readers.

A stable life of living in a fixed location is the trouble-free way of life that most people pursue. In addition to stability, travel can take us to various parts of the world, either in person or through reading.

(Written in 2019)