The Hero's Journey: Why We Covet Travel

Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.”
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 47

We have all heard that travel promotes personal growth. It expands our horizons, and all that good stuff. Schools, from elementary to university-level, promote student exchanges. The gap year is practically a requisite for adulthood these days. But can you really just take a trip somewhere and come back a changed person?

A young woman walking through a city street — A heroic act?

Is travel a ‘magic pill’ for resolving unhappiness or emotional distress?

In this article I will focus on leisure travel, and save religious, philanthropic, and commercial travel for another time. Travel, for the parameters of this article, will refer to travel with the intent of marvel, wonder, and exploration of the unknown or foreign.

The hero’s journey

The hero’s journey, or the monomyth, is a term coined by comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero with A Thousand Faces. After analyzing hundreds of myths and stories from cultures throughout the world, he found striking similarities in storytelling patterns, and mapped them out into a one-size-fits-all template.

In a hero’s journey, an unassuming citizen receives a call to adventure. Initially reluctant, the citizen ventures into the vast unknown, where he or she meets a variety of new friends and foes, overcomes a series of trials, gains elusive wisdom, and returns home.

Campbell argues that the hero’s journey can be seen in the stories of Buddha, Moses, and Jesus, among other religious figures. It can be seen in the mythic adventures of Odysseus and Aeneas, as well as in the scripts of modern Hollywood blockbusters. To gain a quick understanding of the hero’s journey template, see this comparison of Star Wars and Harry Potter — both authors have acknowledged a debt to Campbell’s work. Campbell believed the hero’s journey was so pervasive because it represents a deep emotional understanding of the human process of change.

Such hero’s journeys, I would argue, coincide with the modern belief that travel is a vehicle for psychological transformation: An everyman leaves his hometown and through a series of adventures he undergoes a change and returns home transformed.

I mean, isn’t that kind of how we all imagine our vacations playing out? The travel industry certainly encourages the idea. The promise of travel as a means of enacting deep, lasting change inspires us to shell out big money for airfare, lodging, and everything else. But does it work?

Let’s take a look at how travel has developed over the years.

Leisure travel throughout history

Greco-Roman times

Leisure travel is nothing new. When Alexander the Great unified the Mediterranean region in the 4th century BC, and Greeks gained access to the previously unknown civilizations of Egypt, Persia, and Babylon, they began to document the monuments and architecture of these civilizations in travel guidebooks. It was through this practice that the concept of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World arose.

One poet, after visiting Athens in the 5th century BC, wrote:

“If you’ve never seen Athens, your brain’s a morass;
if you’ve seen it and weren’t entranced, you’re an ass;
if you left without regrets, your head’s solid brass!”

Though his words drip with sarcasm, this poet reflected the belief that seeing Athens — and by extension absorbing its culture — developed one’s mental facilities. He was probably right, too: Athens, at the time, was unusually conducive to genius. It’s openness to new ideas, acceptance of cultural outsiders, and spurning of materialism fostered a perfect environment for creative thought to flourish. Philosophers hung out at bars, freely exchanging insights and ideas on which Western civilization was founded. You really could swing over to Athens from a neighboring city-state in the 4th or 5th century BC and undergo a psychological transformation. And if you happened to stumble upon Diogenes while you were roaming the city — well, that would be enough adventure for anybody!

The Renaissance Grand Tour

In 17th Century Europe, travel became better organized. The Grand Tour, a journey from England to Italy and back, can be seen as the spiritual precursor of the modern tourist industry. It symbolized a rite of passage for upper class young men, undertaken for the purpose of expanding one’s horizons, and more importantly, to cement one’s status at home.

On the Grand Tour toffs were lead around by tutors who ensured all the proper sights were seen. From England to the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and finally Italy, the tourist met with hosts from the privileged classes, exposing himself to foreign customs and culture — all within the bubble of the upper class, of course. When the tourist returned home, he was prepared to take up a job as a diplomat or foreign adviser, or some other fancy profession.

The tour was a symbol of privilege, and it came to be so envied by the lower classes that when the Industrial Revolution swept through Europe, and railroads created accessibility to travel for non-aristocrats, the practice among the upper class began to lose its luster — it isn’t enlightening if anyone can do it.

Perhaps that sheds some light on its intrinsic value?

Modern tourism: a simpler pleasure

Tourism today is in most cases much more highly structured. Generally safe, and widely accepted, it emphasizes physical comfort and relaxation. Mental discomfort, too, is minimized. Decisions — where to stay, what to see — are made in advance to set anxious minds at ease. Itineraries are pre-planned, and travel books are crammed into every pocket.

It can be a wonderful way to spend a week or two, or even a few months, but it doesn’t always mean a whole lot.

With risk lowered and chance reduced, the traveler has limited opportunity to undergo trials in strange and exotic lands, to meet mentors, tricksters, shapeshifters, and the like, or to experience an apotheosis gained from the joining of dissimilar minds. Tourism just isn’t very conducive to psychological change.

Rather, consumption of place is in many cases a “pleasure of the flesh” — an experience that simply feels good. Think sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. When we visit a new town, city, or country, we see new things, taste new food, meet new people, hear new music, etc. It is immersion into novelty — complete sensorimotor decadence.

We return home refreshed, relaxed, senses having been indulged. But more often than not, the luster of the experience quickly fades. We are left with some nice pictures, a few anecdote, and a suitcase full of souvenirs, but are no better equipped to manage day-to-day life or build meaningful relationships. We have gained no greater insight into the human condition.

So what do we do next? Start planning our next vacation! Maybe all the insights aren’t in Rome, after all, but in Paris. Or Tokyo. Anywhere, but here.

This is the hedonic treadmill. The concept is simple: We return to a happiness set-point after good or bad events. Travel — a good event — makes us feel good for awhile . . . until it doesn’t. Hedonic pleasure has its place in the well-lived life, but if you’re expecting it to be a catalyst for lasting change, you will probably be disappointed.

A bland tour

Wimbledon face sleeping — Someone camped out for Wimbledon.

I have taken one trip overseas, in 2012, and remember it fondly. As a lifelong tennis fan, I enjoyed going to Wimbledon for a few days, which had been a goal of mine since I began to watch tennis with my mother as a kid. It was a nice vacation, taken with a good friend, and has provided some fodder for conversation. But did it change me?

Nope.

Even though we spent most of the two-week trip wandering aimlessly through unfamiliar cities, I still didn’t face any challenges that were serious enough to push me out of my comfort zone, or any problems a small wad of cash couldn’t easily solve.

This was no hero’s journey. It was a simple pleasure. I saw some art and architecture, talked to some people, watched some tennis, and . . . returned the same person I was when I had left. A fun time, yes, but it wasn’t a wonder drug (and, actually, the best tennis match I’ve ever seen was in Cincinnati).

I’ve learned a lot more about life from taking day trips on my small sailboat. Learning, through experience, that you cannot sail into the wind, is fraught with metaphorical implications.

Extreme travel

Plenty of people do believe travel can be transformative, and with the world becoming more interconnected and, therefore, homogenous, some are seeking out increasingly isolated locales.

Maybe I just wasn’t adventurous enough to have expected meaningful change. Or you could argue that I may have needed to get out of the big cities and to immerse myself in nature To that, I would suggest that I could go to any nearby patch of woods to do that. Walden, after all, was only two miles from Thoreau’s family home.

Distance traveled, perhaps, isn’t directly correlated with personal growth.

If it’s psychological or emotional growth you’re after — if you’re unfulfilled, if you feel your relationships are broken or breaking, your career stalled, or your drive diminishing, and you dream of setting off on your own hero’s journey, hoping that an emersion in an unfamiliar environment will help you to uncover hidden knowledge . . . you might have better luck at home.

Introspection: the hero’s inward journey

The quote at the top of the page, attributed to Lao Tzu, offers a different approach to personal growth: To build and nurture a single relationship – the relationship with yourself — is all you need to gain an understanding of all relationships. If you can learn to be kind and gentle with yourself, to practice patience with yourself, and to find balance when you are too high or too low, you will understand human nature. If you can find peace within, you will find peace wherever you go.

Without going outside, you may know the whole world.”

This is a powerful statement, and one of my favorite quotes from anywhere in the world. There was a time I would have had to travel thousands of miles before I heard about Lao Tzu. But as it turns out, I bumbled into his name about ten years ago at a Barnes and Noble down the street from my house (maybe that was my hero’s journey . . . ).

One can be introspective anywhere, of course, but there is a reason those who practice self-reflection professionally tend to stay home: the world is distracting. Isn’t travel, in a lot of ways, just one big distraction? It provides a constant assault of the novel and remarkable, and with all that new stimuli to integrate, how (and, perhaps, why) would you find the time to address your emotional health?

Ralph Waldo Emerson believed travel not only to be unproductive, but damaging:

The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home . . . or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself . . . Travelling is a fool’s paradise.”

Self-reflection isn’t easy. It may seem less cumbersome to travel around the entire planet than to spend twenty minutes in quite reflection, but there is no round-about path to self-improvement, regardless of what the travel industry would have you believe.

The hero’s journey is a metaphor for the process of change that occurs within. When we leave our comfort zones– physically, mentally, or emotionally — we increase the potential for personal growth. Travel is an effective way to leave our physical comfort zone, but it does not guarantee growth any more than does a puzzle guarantees intellectual growth. It is certainly possible to improve oneself while traveling, but you shouldn’t expect travel itself to do the work for you.

Travel undoubtedly has its benefits. It can be fun, challenging, and educational. It can deepen your appreciation of a culture and its milestones, and it can make something real that had only seemed two-dimensional. You can create new friendships, and learn things that may develop into new hobbies and interests.

So travel to engage your curiosity, to be awed by beautiful monuments and natural wonders, and to have new experiences. But don’t travel to improve your life at home. You need to be home to do that.

References:

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-Reliance, 1841.
Tzu, Lao (attributed). Tao Te Ching. Approx. 4th century BC.