Travel—why is it travel?
Everyone has heard how Tony Leung, when he’s feeling down, will hop on a plane to London to feed pigeons. Many people sigh, saying that’s what life is all about—and it’s even the kind of enviable, spontaneous trip you can just go on anytime.
But in reality, besides the usual domestic travel, these so-called spontaneous trips are hard to pull off. Because in China, traveling abroad mostly still requires a visa—you can’t just buy a ticket on a whim and fly wherever you want.
For someone like me, a working professional, spontaneous travel seems even more out of reach. For me, most trips happen during the national holidays, because that’s the only time I get extended breaks. That’s why every trip feels so precious and unforgettable.
To me, travel is not just about the traditional eating, drinking, and sightseeing. It’s more about seeing people and things we’re not familiar with, more about connecting and communicating with fellow travelers, and more about exploring the unknown in unfamiliar places.
As someone who loves to travel, I’ve made it a point to visit at least one new place every year since I started working—to see different scenery, to record the people and events I encounter with my own eyes, to measure every step I take with my own feet, and to describe the local cultures and customs in my own voice. That’s the kind of travel I long for.
And how fortunate I am to have met a few like-minded friends along the journey of life. At least for every trip, I have you all by my side. So every journey becomes more wonderful and meaningful because of you.
Thank you, my friends.