The Voyager Diary— between escaping and escapism.


There is a self-expression in travelling that the human spirit is barred from in regular life. Much is made of the places you see, of the people that you meet while journeying through this world. Yet I’m not sure that’s where it’s at. The traveler can not be understood through a few sights snapped for the viewing pleasure of Internet strangers, carefully penciled and scheduled to allow time for gift shopping and trains in another country (ah, a language unto itself crafted of confusion and travelers' checks).

Rather, to reach that travel-exclusive nirvana, one must examine the very fabric of our voyaging. Not the pretty pictures, but the sentiment of freedom and guilt-free indulgence that we carry with us long after the snapshots are gone.Eager to understand (and capture) that elusive essence of my wanderlust, I started breaking apart some of my favorite memories and invariably arrived at food. On the road, eating is promoted to a veritable raison d’etre, something to build the entire day around. We’ve seen appealing restaurants on Instagram we want to eat at. We all want to try the cannoli, or the baguette, or the fish’n’chips, and get the “proper” experience. Top that with the positive social connotations of eating, it becomes the main part of the trip.