Hao 1

Rui Hao
Justine Yan
Writing 39B
7 Oct 2017

CR 1 Message and Purpose

1) There are so many reasons about why we travel, maybe under subconsciousness, and

there is no absolute answer. These reasons often contradict each other, but they spark directly or

indirectly from our human nature. In the text, Iyer has listed multiple reasons about why we

travel. He agrees with George Santayana that we, the human, need to release ourselves from

work and stability, in order to open eyes and become more deliberate in life later on. Through

travel, we can see how drastically things can be different, and treated differently. In the text,

Iyer has also differed travelers from tourists. He sees the difference in a way that tourism,

both destroys and rescue exotic cultures, while travelers, making less impact in foreign areas,

instead, discover and experience changes in the world and in themselves.

During the voyage, a traveler would fit in the atmosphere like Iyer does. He would lay all

his beliefs and ethics aside, and does things that the locals do to physically feel and understand

the distinction; because as a traveler, he has already lost himself from the start, and yet on the

way looking for himself in a new form. Even though we might run into unknown and fear in

the process, we can ask questions, and that searching progress is the icing on the cake for the

travelers. Iyer has also compared two wonderful things, travel and love. We meet similar

struggles finding love and going on a trip, and we share same happiness and satisfaction when

we reach our destination. In the end, Iyer encouraged both traveling and travel writing by making

a lot of metaphors and allusions. Travel never exhausts.

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2) By making allusions, especially mentioning his favorite travel writers, Emerson and

Thoreau, Iyer encourages people to travel, not only because travel makes you see new places

with new eyes, but also has effects in the world that you travel in. Throughout the text, I think

Iyers purpose is to deliver important message about mental health along with the best

medicinetravel.

I think Iyers has two groups of intended audience, those who do not travel and those

who travel a lot. People who do not travel probably are busy at work, and they may not

appreciate how they live or what kind of people they are. Iyer wants them to travel; he

encourages them to lose themselves in an aimless trip, and find their way back into refreshing

form. The other group of audience may qualify what Iyer calls a voyager. They fly around the

world and feel similar things that Iyer does. Iyer invokes their experiences, and let they reflect on

themselveshelp them know better about what they know. After reading the this piece, these

travelers may write a letter to Iyer, recording their own journey, and even though they may never

meet, they would smile like old friends who just reunite.

In the article, I agree with Iyer about the fact that you can make a better self with none

placing you. I believe, moving is like traveling. I have moved several times, mainly for

education, and every time I get somewhere new, I change a lot. When there is no persona that

you need to fit in, and when you are no longer required to be yourself to be sane, you can make a

change, and none would judge you, including yourself.

I slightly disagree with Iyer on his opinion about tourism. Iyer defined tourism with an

ironic tone that almost criticizes it, while acknowledging its beneficial part for resuscitating
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cultures, which makes it difficult to disagree as a whole, but I am not comfortable about it.

Although travelers and tourists are distinguished in this context, they still share many

similarities, and arguably still identical. Not every trip of every traveler is a sacred and

meaningful mission to either forget or elevate themselves, at least not begin with that specific

purpose. Most of the travels people go to, are still places where others go. Although tourism

sounds like a hurricane that storms the culture, I think many kinds of travels are a part of

tourism.