The best travel writing has such a timeless and universal quality, and it endures with lessons and observations that keep us thinking.
We can read a handful of those lessons in a blog post at Brave New Traveler by Olivia Hambrett, who examines "5 Writers Who Affirm the Importance of Travel."
Among the literary luminaries she quotes are Maya Angelou, Margaret Mead, Rosalia de Castro and, of course, our favorite, Mark Twain. Hambrett offers this fascinating tidbit about Twain: Despite the critical success of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Twain's best-selling work of his lifetime was The Innocents Abroad.
In Hambrett's post, one of the most useful observations about travel comes from 18th century English writer Samuel Johnson, who wrote:
"He only is a useful traveler, who brings home something by which his country might be benefited."
Hambrett summarizes that Johnson "identified one of the richest rewards of traveling: applying new knowledge of different ways of life in a way that benefits your own country. Even if it’s only on a small scale, both you and those around you are all the richer for it."
In other words, it's not just what you see and experience while traveling the world, it's what you do about it when you return home.
Photo: dnhoshor via Flickr (CC license)
