Worldhum.com recently republished one of my favorite essays – Why We Travel by Pico Iyer – as part of their 8th anniversary celebration.

The essay is an absolute masterwork.

Why We Travel elucidates the inner journey of travel in Iyer’s classic style of lyrical juxtaposition.

Where There Be Dragons

Here’s an excerpt:

The sovereign freedom of traveling comes from the fact that it whirls you around and turns you upside down, and stands everything you took for granted on its head. If a diploma can famously be a passport (to a journey through hard realism), a passport can be a diploma (for a crash course in cultural relativism). And the first lesson we learn on the road, whether we like it or not, is how provisional and provincial are the things we imagine to be universal.

Isn’t that a fabulous quote? The whole essay is even better.

For years, some Where There Be Dragons programs have used Why We Travel as the first reading assignment, simply because it captures the magic of exploration so well.

If you haven’t read Why We Travel yet, read it now. If you have read it, read it again.

And while you’re at Worldhum, make sure to say congrats to Jim and Mike for eight – !!! 8 !!! – years of publishing fantastic travel stories.