Why do you travel?

I have been on reckless trips for 10 years. I used to visit places where other people do not go in the name of field trips, depending on the Google Map and reference grids of a map to get to places where even locals do not know.

Two years ago, I managed to go to a remote village in Hungary just to see a bronze pot (from the Bronze Age), with eating cup noodles at every meal. My team hurrahed at the sight of the pot but the local tour guide seemed to be dumbfounded. The theme of the trip to Eastern Europe was “In Search for the Bronze Pot.”

This year, I searched for dolmens in Sochi, a Russian summer vacation spot, instead of swimming in the Black Sea. I had to spend more time on the road because of the traffic jam. Whenever I saw a new form of dolmens, however, I saw them in admiration like I was watching a blond woman of Northern Europe. I felt more excited in that I might be the first Korean to see them. This is the charm of field trips.

Whenever old friends get together, they have a lot of memories to share. One of the memories is Bayan Ulgii in the end of the northwestern Mongolia, which I visited six years ago. We ran endless roads in a Russian minivan for five days of the trip and no lodge, not to mention a hotel, was there. After breathing lots of dusts from the floor of the van, we had to camp on the waterside at dusk.

What was prepared for the 27 field trip members was Mongolian traditional tents “ger.” It was such an impressive scene that five minivans were followed by a truck crossing the meadow. The truck was carrying a large ger, a tent for two people, a portable toilet, a tent for a kitchen, and three living sheep on top of the load. The weather in the meadow was too hot in the day but cold at night.

Some people might say enviously, “What a luxury in the middle of hot summer!” It is a different story if one had to skip washing your face and brushing your teeth because melted water from glaciers was too cold. People would ask, “Why do you ask for trouble?” but reasons are plenty. Three rainbows after a sudden shower, a yellow bright moon just like an artwork of a someone, and star clusters embroidered in the sky were surprising presents during the trip. For me, it was such a touching moment to look at the permanent snow of Mt. Tavan Bogd on the back of a horse. People would ask for trouble to keep such memories.

“Having a pattern when traveling means the suicide of travels,” Takashi Tachibana, a Japanese writer, wrote in his book “Meditative Travel.” “The essence of travels is in discovery and finding a new you like what you find when you are out of your daily pattern, and how you change when you saw something new.”

If one wants something new, one has to leave. If one wants to leave, one should not have feelings left behind. A travel carrying everything you need in the name of camping is popular in Korea. People have a high-ceiling inner tent that makes people easy to take on and off clothes inside, a shade to accommodate more than four people, and spongy and thick bedding that completely blocks coldness and humidity, and barbeque grills and chairs. But people looks for more, and goods are getting more luxurious and people want bigger car trunks. They do not have to think about local foods because they bring pork steaks, sausages, and fish in a large icebox. If one leaves without carrying much, travels fill the gap. On the contrary, if one leaves with lots of goods, one leaves garbage behind.