" Why we travel" response

              In the article, "Why we travel" Pico Ayer makes a very unusual point about traveling. Ayer starts by explaining the difference between a traveler and a tourist. Pico Ayer says that a tourist complains about the environment they are observing, but a traveler indulges their surroundings. I agree with Ayer's in this point. When ever I think about a tourist i think of people that rome around all day aimlessly pointing at structure without knowing to meaning behind it. Tourist to me usually spend more money and time booking a room at a five star hotel than observing their surroundings. Then when I think about travelers, I think of a person that doesn't worry about the hotel their are sleeping in, they want to spend more energy on their sight seeing and taking as much as knowledge as they can. A traveler is someone that sees their surroundings with all of their senses, and interprets everything in a new way. 

               Ayer next  brought to my attention, that in order to be a traveler you don't have to go to a foreign country, Ayer explains that many people travel in their own cities. San Francisco for example, many people that live in this city have to walk ten blocks just to get to work. What Pico Ayer made me realize, was that in those ten blocks to work, you are seeing different cultures, structures and lifestyles. People don't need to travel to Africa to whitness poverty, you can simple venture down the street and examine your own community. My definition of traveling, before I read this article was, leaving your life and problems behind you and venturing to a new country. But what Pico made me realize is you don't have to leave the country you live in to be considered a traveler.

              An interesting comparison that Pico Ayer made was the notion between traveling and a love affair, these are completely different ideas but have the same meaning. Ayer proposed that a love affair can be like a journey to a foreign country. You can't speak the language, and you don't know where you're going, and you feel lost but in the same sense you feel complete. I have never related traveling in this aspect, it made me think when you travel you are in a different state of mind. You suddenly don't think about the past or future when you are traveling, you are only thinking about that moment in time, but you also do this when having a love affair.