In five years, he visited 49 countries, spending just over 100,000 yuan; besides sightseeing, he loved to visit one special place in every destination: celebrity graves. Lu Zhen teaches literature at Nankai University and enjoys sharing his travel stories and photos with his students, but what he really wants to tell these young students is that beauty is actually all around us, and so is the beauty of literature. He said: "Travel is not about how far you go, how much you spend, or how many photos you take, but about how you change the way you see things. If you're inspired, even moving your bed to a new spot and walking around it three times can be a kind of journey."
Bringing travel stories into the classroom to share with students
When teaching poetry in class, Lu Zhen always shows a photo he took of the 'Poets' Café,' the very café where poet Alexander Pushkin drank his last cup of coffee before dueling and dying with his rival. "Telling a story makes the students listen with great interest, and the impression sticks much better."
Every time he visits a place, Lu Zhen brings back a unique fridge magnet, and now these magnets have filled up three large boards. "In 2008, I got the opportunity to go to the Netherlands to write my doctoral dissertation. That’s when I fell in love with traveling. This is a fridge magnet I brought back from Germany, embedded with a small piece of the Berlin Wall. There’s also one from Egypt, Japan, North Korea..." Holding up each fridge magnet, Lu Zhen recalls those travel experiences. "Fridge magnets aren’t just souvenirs proving you’ve been somewhere. They contain the most typical cultural information of the place, and sometimes a single magnet is a microcosm of history or a civilization."
A budget travel experience worth 100,000 yuan over 5 years to explore unique cultures
"My travel expenses over these five years totaled about 100,000 yuan, all covered by my salary and income from writing travel essays." Lu Zhen’s budget travel secret isn’t complicated — it’s about making full use of all kinds of information, sometimes booking flights half a year in advance. "For example, I just found out about a special deal for a round-trip flight from Beijing to Seattle with taxes included for only 2,500 yuan, six months from now." For the most expensive part of travel — transportation — he generally keeps costs within "about 1,500 yuan for a round trip of under six hours." As for food, "Before going to Germany, I found online that the city hall offers meals to the public, and for 10 euros you could get a meal that would cost 40 euros elsewhere." When it comes to accommodation, for someone like Lu Zhen who is eager to experience diverse cultures, he prefers cheap but distinctive youth hostels. "I’ve stayed in a hostel converted from a prison in Sweden, and also in one built from a medieval-era historical building."
Visiting the graves of local cultural figures everywhere he goes
On every trip, Lu Zhen visits local landmarks, heritage sites, and residences related to cultural figures. "What I love most is visiting the graves of cultural celebrities," Lu Zhen says. In Paris, he spent over an hour finding the tombstone of the modern poet Baudelaire, whom he deeply admires, among more than 2,000 graves, just to quietly pay his respects. Henri Mouhot, the discoverer of Angkor Wat, died in Laos while pursuing cultural endeavors, and this pioneer who died in exploration earned Lu Zhen’s great admiration. In Laos, Lu Zhen ventured deep into the mountains alone to find this predecessor’s grave, eventually locating it after eight hours. "To get to those places, I tried every kind of transport — tractors, bicycles, you name it."