"The open road, the busy highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling dawns, villages, cities! Here today, up and off somewhere else tomorrow. Change, interest, excitement! Always somebody else's horizon". Those words which we find in Kenneth Grahams book, "The wind in the willows", excel in summing up the enthusiasm and satisfaction that travel brings to those who indulge in it. Travel offers an opportunity for adventure, satisfies one's sense of beauty, gives one a feeling of power and mastery over the things around him and finally one's mind broadens to see somebody else's horizon.
It is the young mind which identifies itself with the hero who undertakes hazardous adventures in stories. Adventure keeps us from growing stale and old. It stimulates our imagination and offers change and movement that are necessary to keep ourselves away from boredom. Nowadays, one enjoys adventures and excitement by watching films or reading novels. But real adventure is not undertaken by many of us. It is nothing but travel which gives an opportunity to get real adventure. One must have read or studied in lower classes about Nehru's adventure during his travel to Amarnath.
One of the chief objectives of travel is to go in search of beauty. The beauty spots attract thousands of travellers. When one travels, one comes face to face with scenes which cannot fail to inspire one. It sends the traveller back to his everyday life with a new stimulus and an altogether broader realization of the world's possibilities. Travel devises ways to come into contact with many people of different cultures and the much travelled man has sympathy for all and is, therefore, much more likely to be able to understand point of view other than his own.
The greatest joy of travel is coming home again. He who never leaves his home sees all. In it's imperfections. So the traveller besides the delight of travel has the additional satisfaction of a fuller appreciation of his home. The feelings o Wordsworth can be better understood only by a traveller,. He says" I travelled among unknown men. In lands across the sea, Nor,England, did I know till then The love I bore to thee."
(AW:Samrat Biswas)
