A climber observing sunset. ©iStockphoto.com/lopurice

‘Travel is a means to an end. Home.’ This is one assertion made by a recent ad campaign for popular flat-pack superstore IKEA. Though the idea behind the ad is clear (home is important, so why not kit yours out with our latest range of…?), being confronted with this simple statement on the tube while exploring London, a city of which I am not a native, made me wonder- is travelling the means to a specific end? And if so, what is it? Where does the value in travel lie?

Reasons behind the choice to travel vary greatly from person to person, time to time, and trip to trip. In one lifetime, decisions to travel may be motivated by work, wanting to get away from work, a desire to see people, a desire to get away from people, a desire to experience new scenery or cultures, or perhaps a mixture. However, though the two are connected, the question of what makes a travel experience valuable is trickier than the question of why people choose to travel at all.

The most compelling answer to why travel is rewarding in the moment is that we enjoy the temporary escape from our everyday lives, but I also believe it has more lasting benefits. The long-term benefits of travel can be explained as the effects of immersing ourselves in the unfamiliar.

The idea of taking off on the open road has long been romanticised, and the sustained popularity of cruises and inter railing suggests that we find worth in the actual act of travelling as well as in the destinations we decide on. A wish to lead lives, if only temporarily, in which we are not restricted by the roles we have assumed at home, can manifest itself as a wish not to be restricted to one place. This wish can be fulfilled by a journey with no one, set destination.

Even if you decide to settle on one destination, there is still that special feeling you get when you wander around a city you don’t know. Something about having no idea who or what you’ll find around that next corner makes you feel, at the risk of sounding clichéd, like anything is possible. Freed from the constraints imposed by the responsibilities and relationships of everyday life, we are at liberty to feel what Jack Kerouac describes in On the Road as “the ragged and ecstatic joy of pure being”.

Of course this feeling is, for the most part, a short-term phenomenon. Travelling away from the location you call home will not sever all ties and relationships you have in this place, and few of us would want it to. Even when we are removed from familiar surroundings, some behavioural limits clearly apply. We are bound by the need to be sensitive to local values in the place we have chosen to escape to. Ultimately, we may find these more restrictive than those we encounter at home.

Despite the fact that the exhilaration of escape from what we know may be short lived, many people still choose to travel repeatedly and for prolonged periods. When we reminisce, it is those experiences that we feel have had long-term gains for us that we prize the most. The long-term benefits that people find in travel may come from the effects that the unfamiliar has on our minds and outlooks.

Most gap year students will tell you that that there is a connection between travelling and personal fulfilment, or, if you’re feeling a little more pretentious, ‘finding yourself’. This kind of effect stays in place long after you return to whatever you happen to call normality. The alteration of your own perspective associated with travelling is often caused by exposure to different cultures.

When confronted with a culture markedly different from our own, we are also confronted with a myriad of motivations and principles that keep this culture in place. Instead of making judgements based on the descriptions provided by other people, we can form our own explanations based on what we find. Instead of seeing people from other cultures as homogenous groups, we meet individuals with whom we may have more in common than we expected. One travel enthusiast credits exposure to new cultures with “[broadening our] personal horizons” and changing the way we look at familiar scenes, and when asked about what he has gained from his previous travel experiences, he immediately starts talking about the advantages of “intercultural experiences”. For some the two phrases are, at least where it is most significant, synonymous.

However, not all journeys away from home afford us the chance to be absorbed into a culture previously unknown to us. Some more stereotypically ‘touristy’ trips may not give us an authentic taste of a place or its native people, or we may be in a place for too short a time to truly understand it. It is telling that often the trips that are appreciated most in hindsight are those that allow us to take in the culture of the place we are visiting the most thoroughly.

We live in an age where we find information about faraway places and people relatively easy to come by. Turn on the travel channel and you’ll find an eager presenter ready to show you the ins and outs of the next hot destination. Google any place name and you’ll find the pros and cons of a visit there helpfully listed by previous explorers. Unfortunately, none of this can come close to giving you the kind of insight you can get from discovering a place yourself.

Just as there is variation between people, times and trips where reasons for travel are concerned, there is also variation where reasons for valuing travel are concerned. Still, escape, in the short term, and exposure to new cultures, in the long run, are widely compelling reasons to value travel. These are reasons that are not going anywhere. So as for that IKEA ad, I think it’s a little misleading. There is more than one end to be achieved through travel; more than one advantage to be gained. Furthermore, one of the many things we learn from exposure to new cultures is just how much more there is out there to learn from. I don’t believe anybody can reach a point at which they no longer have anything to gain from travelling. Though we may use the term ‘end’, when it comes to reaping the rewards of travel I can see no finish line.