Two Reasons to Travel (Rational and Emotional)

These two stories have had a powerful effect on me:

Why economist Alex Tabarrok (of Marginal Revolution) decided to travel to Machu Picchu spontaneously:

At lunch with Bryan and Tyler last week the question arose as to what we would do differently if we were immortal.  […]  I answered that I would travel more.

Later the question was asked, what would you do differently if you found out you had only a short time to live.  I answered again that I would travel more.  […] I realized there was a problem.  Given that I would travel more if I was to live either less or more the probability that I was at just that level of mortality that I should not be traveling now must be vanishingly small.

I leave for a solo trek to Machu Picchu July 25.

Why Ben Corman (of Rudius Media) is staying in Panama longer than initially anticipated:

I don’t know why I’m doing this. Certainly not because it’s easy. We run out of everything here. […] And now it’s rained for five days straight. […] Paradise is starting to feel like a prison cell.

But given the chance to spend three months living in Panama, how could I say no? I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what I’d missed.

[…] If you’re the kind of person who feels uncomfortable in business casual and spends every second of sitting behind a desk wishing, desperately for something, anything else, then there really isn’t a choice. Some people make it work. Some people can find the happy medium between who they are during their work week and who they are outside of it. I’d probably be a happier person if I’d found that balance but in 31 years, it’s eluded me every step of the way. Instead of buckling down and doing whatever I’m supposed to be, I’m always running off to do whatever I want.

And so I guess that’s why I’m here. In the end I didn’t really have a choice.