Travelers and Stay-at-Homes

What each gains and loses,
and why we need each other


“That boy needs a job,” my aunt said, meaning me. Laurie and I were staying in Mesa, Arizona, for several weeks one winter, staying warm and visiting doctors for check-ups and minor repairs. Laurie had spoken with my aunt on the phone and had mentioned that I was getting “antsy,” meaning tired of being in Mesa and wanting to travel again. My aunt had made similar comments about my wanderlust on other occasions. A day later, we spoke with my mom on the phone. She had somehow gotten the idea that we were coming “home” to Missouri for Christmas and was disappointed to learn than we weren’t. The two of them made me feel halfway guilty. Perfect strangers that we met on the road appreciated and envied our full-time traveling. “I admire what you’re doing,” a farmer from Iowa had told us. “You’re an inspiration,” said a young couple we met at a trailhead. It almost seemed that everybody respected what we were doing except the people we loved the most. The truth is that I did feel badly about not spending more time with Mom, and it hadn’t been much different with Laurie’s mom before she died. Both of them loved us and knew that we loved to travel. But they didn't really understand. They didn't admire what we were doing or assign much value to the fact that we were somebody's inspiration.

Culturally, of course, there’s a long tradition of disrespect for people who make traveling their lifestyle. Rooted people committed to a particular locality are held in higher regard than we travelers are. They don’t carry the negative baggage of nomads, drifters, vagabonds, and gypsies. Wallace Stegner, for example, had a dim view of the traveler: “Adventurous, restless, seeking, asocial or antisocial, the displaced American persists by the million.... To the placed person he seems hasty, shallow, and restless. He has a current like the Platte, a mile wide and an inch deep.… Culturally, he is a discarder or transplanter, not a builder or conserver” [Stegner 1992: 199]. Stegner went on: “I know about this. I was born on wheels, among just such a family. I know about the excitement of newness and possibility, but I also know the dissatisfaction and hunger that result from placelessness” [201].

What was the point of our vagabond lifestyle? Sometimes it did feel privileged and irresponsible. Did it have a point other than simply being what we wanted to do and had the good fortune of being able to do?


There are two conditions that make travel unique: (1) removal from the familiar surroundings of home and (2) movement through a succession of different places and experiences [Leed 1991].

Obviously, the condition of being away from home makes it possible for people to see for themselves things that are not available at home. Robert Byron: “There are other ways of making the world’s acquaintance. But the traveler[’s] … grasp of a fact can only be complete when reinforced by sensory evidence; he can know the world, in fact, only when he sees, hears, and smells it” [Fussell 1980: 91]. Being away from home also allows the traveler to try out new personas, to experiment with ways of relating to the environment or to other people that might not be comfortable at home. Alain de Botton: “It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves.... [T]he domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life” [de Botton 2002: 56]. Finally, the condition of being away from home also gives the traveler a fresh perspective, stimulating the likelihood of new observations or new ways of understanding. A traveler is more consistently alert than someone in an environment where they assume they know everything. Alison Hawthorne Deming: “When I identify a plant, I write [its name] in my notebook and move on. When I don’t know what I’m looking at, I stop, draw a picture, [and] make notes about the conditions in which it grows…. In terms of sensory participation, I feel that I know what I don’t know more fully than I know what I know. Perhaps that’s why traveling to a new and unknown place is such a pleasure” [Deming 1998: 31]. Rebecca Solnit: “This may be one of the underappreciated pleasures of travel: of being at last legitimately lost and confused” [Solnit 1998: 167]. Lucy Lippard: “Travel is the only context in which some people ever look around” [Lippard 1999: 13].

The second condition of travel, continuous movement through a succession of places and experiences, is absent from some people’s travel. For them, travel is simply a temporary switch from home to some less familiar place, such as a resort or summer cottage. But, where travel does take the form of continuous movement, as it did for Laurie and me, it complicates the making of comparisons in ways that might be important. Visiting a single place different from home prompts comparisons with home: is this place better or worse than home? By contrast, Eric Leed suggests that, when travelers visit many different places, the accumulation of comparisons may induce a “process of generalization,” resulting in “the loss of absolutes” and “a diminished sense of the sanctity of the home” or “faith in a chosen people” [Leed 1991: 69]. If it’s true, as Mark Twain said, that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,” then the process outlined by Leed might be the way it happens.

Although it might be a trivial example, I can trace changes like those in my feelings about the Indiana Dunes. When I was growing up in their vicinity, I wanted to believe that they were “best” sand dunes of all, and it was only with reluctance that I learned that others were more impressive. I discovered the spectacular setting of the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, the height of the Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan, the color of the Coral Pink Sand Dunes in Utah, and the presence of lovely ponds amid the dunes at Ludington, Michigan. My enjoyment of those places was half-spoiled by regret. But, with time and additional experience, my impressions of the various sand dune areas become richer, giving me increasing numbers of dimensions on which to base comparisons. The color might have been better in one place, but the ponds were more beautiful in another and the size of the dunes more dramatic in yet another. In the end, all I could say is that each of them was different, and all were wonderful. For a time, that might have diminished the value of my original favorite back in Indiana, but eventually it too joined the others as a commensurate and unrankable partner.

In summary, travelers are more likely to “look around.” They’re more likely to be receptive and to bring a fresh perspective. They’re less likely to assume that they have already discovered everything about a place. But their impressions are also more likely to be superficial; they’re more likely to make judgments based on appearances and to lack an empathetic understanding of a locality. Local people are more likely to feel a sense of attachment, whereas the traveler, when things are not going well, can simply move on. Scott Russell Sanders says that settled people are more likely to “keep watch” and to “see the beauty that escapes” the tourist or the investor [Sanders 1994: 112]. But settled people may also be more “utilitarian,” less likely to “look around,” and less likely to appreciate what they have. Sanders says that people who have no roots may be dangerous because there’s too little that they care about deeply and because they have too little respect for the places they visit, but John Hanson Mitchell reminds us that “attachment to a place … also generates prejudice, xenophobia, and war” [Mitchell 2001: xx.]. So I can agree with Stegner that migratoriness may have its dangers, but so does rootedness. Communities of rooted people can be intolerant of strangers and outsiders, and can lack appreciation for their surroundings.

Rootlessness isn’t the problem (nor is settlement). The problem is attitude toward place—toward any place—and it doesn’t matter if one moves or stays. Stegner assumes that people move because they hate where they are, as his father did. He describes the condition as “indifferent to, or contemptuous of, or afraid to commit to, our physical and social surroundings, always hopeful of something better, hooked on change” [Stegner 1992: 204]. But it’s also possible to move because you love every place. That’s what drives Laurie and me. We didn’t leave Ithaca, New York, because we hated it, but because there were so many other good places. Nor do we keep moving, never staying in one area more than a few days, because we never find a place we like. We do it because we know we’ll love the next place, too, and the one after that.


On the other side of this topic, in our experience, are the many towns we visited and fell in love with. Lima, Montana, for example. We were in need of an RV park because the electrical charge in our camper batteries was getting low. Signs at the exit from Interstate 15 indicated that Lima had a motel, two RV parks, and a café. After eating lunch at Jan’s Café, we followed somewhat puzzling signs saying "RV Park & Tennis." The tennis courts were impressive, especially for a little town in a far corner of Montana. There were a half-dozen RV sites; the fee was fifteen dollars a night; and showers cost five dollars per person. Annoyed by the shower fees, we drove back to the motel, which had an RV park connected with it. A woman at the office told Laurie, “RV sites are fifteen dollars a night, and you can take showers in one of the motel rooms, but there’s no bathroom.” Since we had no bathroom in our van, we started to leave, but then noticed electrical outlets outside each room which we could use to recharge our camper batteries, so we went back to the office to ask about a motel room. That time, a young man was in the office. “Rooms are thirty-two dollars,” he said. We looked at each other and said no. “Twenty-seven dollars,” the young man offered. Laurie mentioned that we’d prefer a campsite, but had no bathroom in our camper. The man said. “You can use a bathroom in the laundry, but there’s no shower.” Laurie told him, “The woman we saw earlier said we could take showers in a motel room.” “Fine,” said the young man. “Ten dollars for the RV site and two dollars and fifty cents each for showers.” We accepted.

Later, we learned that the woman and man were mother and son. They had sold the motel five years earlier, but the new owners had trashed it and weren’t making payments, so these people, against their wishes, had taken over again. Laurie and I took our showers early so the room could be ready for other customers.

Tantalizing mountains overlooked Lima, and I calculated that Garfield Mountain was likely to be climbable. The weather, however, was cold and ugly, so we decided to stay another night, and this time took one of the motel rooms. In the course of all this, we ate several meals at Jan’s café. The next morning dawned clear and promising for my hike. We arrived at Jan’s for breakfast ten minutes before the café opened. One by one, several pick-ups pulled up with men in them who also parked and waited. Laurie chatted with a man named Harmon, who assured us that I would find Garfield a beautiful mountain.

That night, after I finished my hike, we stayed in the mountains at a national forest campground. The following morning, before leaving the area, we stopped at Jan’s for one more breakfast. Harmon arrived at the same time and asked, “How was your hike?” Inside the café, the owner joked that we had been around so long we should take up residency. He said: “There’s a water meeting Monday night that you might want to attend.” Harmon asked where we were going next and assured us that we’d like Antone Peak and the Gravelly Range, too. For some reason, he asked if we had a four-wheel drive vehicle. I said, “No,” and he replied, “That’s okay, you won’t need it where you’re going.” When the three of us continued to talk, Harmon moved to our table. He mentioned that he and his wife owned the tennis courts and RV park. They both played tennis, so they had built the courts for themselves and then made them available to the rest of the town as well. “I have to tell you,” Laurie said, “that we would have stayed at your RV park if it hadn’t been for the five dollar shower fees.” Harmon was genuinely upset to learn that we found the fees objectionable. “Before you leave town this morning,” he said, “go there and take showers and don’t worry about paying for them.” We thanked him but declined. “I wish I could do something for you,” he insisted. “The reason why I asked if you had four-wheel drive was that my wife and I own a cabin in the Gravelly Range. I was going to invite you to stay there, but you’d need four-wheel drive to get there.”


I tell about Lima at some length because it was a special experience, but not because it was unique. Other towns in various parts of the country have appealed to us in the same way. For example: the remote former mining town of Jarbidge, Nevada, where an early snowfall detained us for an extra day. People in Jarbidge helped us with directions for hiking in the Jarbidge Mountains; we got into lengthy conversations with somebody different every time we stopped at a local café; and the town—small as it was—seemed filled with fascinating people (our favorite being a hunter who told us he had spent most of one day sitting on a rock and watching the snow melt). In Hamilton, Montana, we stayed around for a concert and a one-actor play; met the actor, who also gave us a list of places to hike; and came back in another summer for a bluegrass festival. Etna, California, was a quiet and friendly haven on a Fourth of July weekend. Buena Vista, Colorado, and Stanley, Idaho, were enjoyable hangouts to return to while hiking in the mountains around them. University towns were consistently dependable: Fort Collins, Bozeman, Corvallis, Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington, Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, and Gainesville. Our biases generally favor places with bookstores, bagel shops, coffee houses, ethnic restaurants, places to walk, a good library, and a sense of caring about local history and scenic beauty.

As travelers who benefit from such places, we understand perfectly well that they don’t “just happen.” Communities that “just happened”—and we saw plenty of them—were never ones where we wanted to spend much time. The places we liked were pretty clearly ones where the people who lived there had given thought to the kind of community they wanted—and what they wanted it to contain—and then made sure it happened. They invested time, energy, and love in their communities, and the results were qualities that we appreciated. If everybody traveled like we did, there wouldn’t be communities like those. Travelers like us benefited from the stay-at-homes.

What did we do for them in return? Anything? When I read Ron Powers’s book about Mark Twain’s boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, I was reminded of the common practice of viewing tourists as a source of economic benefit. Powers tells of a consultant’s proposal for a Mark Twain sesquicentennial celebration which “assumed an interchangeable community visited by interchangeable tourists” [Powers 1986: 104]. The mayor of Hannibal told Powers that, after receiving the consultant’s proposal, “We got to thinking of [the sesquicentennial] as an economic development tool” [103]. Laurie and I were well aware that many communities depended on tourist dollars for income, and it halfway troubled us—when we liked a place—that our expenditures seemed so piddling. Nonetheless, it also bothered me to be reminded of the way tourism promoters commodify tourists. I might feel badly about not giving enough back to the places we liked, but I didn’t want to be commodified. I resented the thought that Laurie and I might be looked upon mainly as a source of income for local business people. The very last thing we wanted to be was a potential economic asset that some entrepreneur might think he could tantalize with vacation homes, water slides, and ski slopes.

In communities throughout the country, Laurie and I spent money on gas, food, post cards, books, CDs by local musicians, and park or museum admissions, but our purpose was not to produce income for local economies. If we had a purpose, it was to be low-key visitors, to do no harm, and to leave no physical trace of our visit. More assertively, we would be friendly, respectful, good-natured, and appreciative. We might remind people that they lived in a more beautiful place than they normally realized. (A gas station proprietor in Newfoundland once told us, “We don’t see the beauty. It takes outsiders to see the beauty.”) Local residents wouldn’t get rich from us, but neither would they be angered or annoyed by our visit. They would enrich us, and we might enrich them in return, but not in monetary ways. At worst, they wouldn’t even know we had been there. At best, they might think, “Those were certainly nice people.”


SOURCES

de Botton, Alain. The Art of Travel. New York: Pantheon, 2002.

Deming, Alison Hawthorne. The Edges of the Civilized World. New York: Picador, 1998.

Fussell, Paul. Abroad. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Leed, Eric J. The Mind of the Traveler. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.

Lippard, Lucy. On the Beaten Track. New York: New Press.

Mitchell, John Hanson. The Wildest Place on Earth. Washington: Counterpoint, 2001.

Powers, Ron. White Town Drowsing. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

Sanders, Scott Russell. Staying Put. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.

Solnit, Rebecca. A Book of Migrations. New York: Verso, 1998.

Stegner, Wallace. Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs. New York: Random House, 1992.