Let’s admit it that most of us don’t get to travel often. And when we do, we try to see almost everything that the place has to offer. I also have friends, who are seasoned travellers, and when I ask them how they cover places, every one has different things to say. While some are just interested in getting away from their boring lifestyle, others want to experience something new.Then I came across a post on Reddit, where one travellers shared that after seven years of travelling, he has decided to stop. He said for him and a few others he met along the way, it became a box of ticking experiences, which served little purpose other than a quick dopamine hit.
Countries logged. Cities “done.” Experiences consumed quickly, packaged neatly, and stored as memories that delivered a brief dopamine hit before demanding the next one. So, the post posted that uncomfortable question to fellow travellers: Has anyone actually found meaning in travelling, or is it just a passion?What followed was not agreement, but revelation. I too have one to share. One of the first replies cut straight to the point: “I just want to eat all the food the world has to provide.” No philosophy. No justification. Just appetite and honesty. Others echoed that bluntness. A self-described nihilist admitted they saw no grand meaning in life at all, travel was simply enjoyable, and that was reason enough. Another shrugged off the idea of ‘box ticking’ entirely. If seeing cool places and doing cool things counts as boxes, then so be it. Fun was the metric.For some, travel wasn’t about escape, it was survival. One commenter said it was the only thing that kept them going: new places, unfamiliar food, good coffee, the quiet satisfaction of adding another country to the list. Another admitted they felt more depressed at home, and that every trip felt like a chance to become someone else, if only briefly. Travel, for them, wasn’t meaning, it was relief.
Others found their purpose not in places, but in people. One traveller realised early on that it was meeting strangers, fleeting connections in hostels, conversations that lasted a night or a week, that kept pulling them back onto the road. Another framed travel as just another hobby: sometimes central, sometimes dormant, something you drift away from and return to when the craving hits. You don’t quit it, they said. You just let it breathe.Then came the pushback.Several commenters gently but firmly turned the question around. If travel felt hollow, maybe it wasn’t travel that was empty, but the way it was being done. One person admitted they’d never sought ‘meaning’ from travelling at all. They experienced cultures, food, languages, music, for themselves alone. No boxes, no audience, no scoreboard. Just an endless list of places they were curious about. They asked a pointed question in return: Who are these boxes for?
That question seemed to unlock something.A long response stood out, which explained how they deliberately rejected the rush. Multiple visits to the same countries. No obsession with seeing everything. No frantic itineraries designed for social media. While others sprinted from landmark to landmark, they lingered, sitting in cafés, going to the gym, watching people in parks, letting days unfold without pressure.They described travelling with little more than a plane ticket and a few nights booked, leaving room for chance encounters. Sometimes they’d meet people in hostels and end up travelling together for a while. Those unplanned moments, they said, were the best experiences of their life. That was when travel stopped feeling like consumption and started feeling like presence.And finally, someone delivered the bluntest conclusion of all: If you’re just ticking boxes, that’s on you.Many voiced out they pictured themselves sitting in an outdoor café, coffee in hand, watching hurried travellers rush past with maps and deadlines, chasing the next thing. No judgment. Just observation. They had no boxes to check, and no interest in starting.By the end of the thread, the original question remained unanswered in the traditional sense. It can be understood that there can’t be a universal meaning for travel. Instead, the comments revealed something more honest: travel doesn’t give life meaning on its own. It simply magnifies whatever you bring into it, restlessness, curiosity, loneliness, joy, hunger, or the need to feel alive.For some, that’s enough. For others, it isn’t. And maybe real clarity comes not from quitting travel, or trying to do how others do it, but just ask yourself once why you’re travelling at all. For me, it’s always the serene vibe, the people, and the unknown that I am going to discover or see that I haven’t seen yet.
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