I have created this blog, because I find the usual way of travelling nowadays is not that attractive to me anymore.

For me, travelling was always about adventure. While on a trip, I want to experience something new, something unknown, and something unexpected. I want to explore, and I want to be surprised.

But nowadays, to do a trip like this is not easy. Too much information flying everywhere, which will mercilessly spoil everything about the destination and also the way. One can hardly avoid developing a habit relying on that information.

Say, if I decided to go somewhere. Before I depart, I would have already done a ton of research about the place — which sites to see, how they look, what to avoid and what to expect. Before I get to the place, thousands of photos have been consumed, street views have been examined, and routes have been planned by GPS. Public transport takes me to the destination, and I will go to the destination directly, take photos and then come back. Everything is in a hush, and half of the joy of the trip is gone.

I respect some of the old people, who still rely on the map printed on paper, road signs and asking people passing by to figure out the directions.

It is just like 15 years ago, when I was still a student, owning a smartphone was kind of a luxury for me, I made quite a few interesting trips. Sometimes, I just took a bus or tram travelling to the end station, and wandered around without a goal at all. On one of the Christmas – New Year holidays, I started walking from my home without much preparation, and followed the road signs, stepped in the deep snow till my knees, until I reached a city 100 km away in 3 days. Once I made a hiking trip completely by drawing road maps, and then reached a youth hotel with a huge blister on my foot. However, that youth hotel was in the deep forest, built in an old castle high up on the hill.

15 years later, I can’t remember many trips I have done to those gorgeous places, but those trips where I suffered the most are exactly the trips that have been carved into my head.

What makes those trips stand out from others?

I think it is engagement, or attachment, or mindfulness, or whatever you want to call it. It is I who is planning the trip, not the GPS. It is the trip that I am planning, not the routes in the GPS. It is I who is enjoying the scene, not the pictures or street views. It is the scene that I am enjoying, not the pictures or street views. There is a two-way connection between me and the destination. That makes everything stand out.

Everything is the same.

In this world, being goal-oriented, productive and efficient is a virtue. People are getting impatient. They are always talking about how they can reach more and more goals in a shorter and shorter period of time. And living a life is just like hoping over a set of predefined goals, and usually the way to the goals are also predefined too, so the only thing one should do is to work harder. Yes, to work harder is something that I agree with, but to work harder for what? Isn’t this the reason why people start to feel more and more detached from what they are doing? Or even feel more and more detached from what they used to enjoy? Thus detached from their lives?

Because people want to reach more and more goals in a shorter and shorter period of time, the tools invented by people are becoming more and more sophisticated, the separation of labour is getting finer and finer. We are just like the workers standing on the pipeline of a giant factory — the society. We don’t know who stands at the other end of the belt; actually we don’t even care. We don’t care about how the half-finished products have been made so far until they appear on the belt in front of us either. Everyday we are celebrating the way the tools have made us become more and more efficient at turning screws on those half-finished products, so that we can be more detached from the work. And after work, we go on holidays, and we try so hard to get detached from holidays too by giving up all the chances to actually do something for the holiday, but only trying to “enjoy” it.

With time, people are getting more and more shallow. We are more into instant stimulations than ever, but still stay unsatisfied. Besides, we are getting more and more restricted, and thus less and less authentic.

What if we stand at the very edge of one’s understanding and experiences. We are exploring something completely new. No one has ever made the trip before; no one is going to tell us their success stories; no tutorial online; no existing tools can help us achieve our goals. What shall we do, if we are so used to going after a certain goal? How can we even figure out our orientation in this situation? One might argue, not everyone will stand at the very edge of their understanding and experiences. Oh, is that true? Everyone’s life is unique, how can one’s life be unique, if it is not being pushed to the very edge of their own understanding and experiences? If so, our individuality and authenticity will be completely restricted by the way we are thinking and acting.

Fortunately, I don’t have to be the “goal-chaser” or to keep a high performance everywhere. I am still free. If I can live a life, if I can survive in the world, the “standard” or “expected” way of life won’t apply to me anymore.

That’s why from time to time, I want to enjoy a life with an undefined path, just like 15 years ago on those crazy trips. A rough direction is enough. I can take whatever route that I want to. There is no deadline, thus there is no rush either. There is no performance quota, and I don’t have to do anything to impress anyone. I don’t even have to reach anywhere, thus I don’t have to yield any result. I’m just on my own, on the trip itself, ready for being surprised, ready for explorations, ready for getting into trouble and finding my own way out, ready for going beyond the knowledgeable people’s wisdom and learning something completely new. In this case, when I lay on my death bed, I would say, “Oh, life was generous to me. I feel fulfilled and satisfied.”

So, why not start from now on?