escape meaning in travel

A Wonderful Escape: Traveling is Your Greatest Stress Reliever

The whole idea of traveling provides a chill of excitement, a burst of happiness, and a thrill of energy.

Traveling abroad is an excellent way to get yourself some “me time,” and is a great escape from the day-to-day pressures of your life.

Traveling has always been one of the best ways to improve yourself. Planning a trip fills you with a sense of enthusiasm, relief, happiness, and joy. It is a highly efficient means to get away from stress. Moreover, it is a wonderful way to explore yourself and the world.

As long as you have a pair of shoes and a passport with you, you can make use of the many types of adventures available at your fingertips. In just an instant, you can go wherever your heart leads you.

Though traveling is costly and there are many risks along the way, it will help you grow and develop into a better person.

So…no matter how many “what-ifs,” risks, and fears you can think of, it is time to pack up, put your best clothes on, go outside of your comfort zone, and see the wonders that life has to offer.

Take an Adventure of a Lifetime

Source:https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-near-body-of-water-near-waterfalls-under-blue-sky-and-white-clouds-127674/

It has always been a source of excitement and fun to take unexpected trips to uncharted and undiscovered places. If you are looking for an adventure, then you need to thrust yourself outside your comfort zone.

You can visit different places, see the breathtaking sights, hit historical museums and ancient places, climb the nearest mountain, and feel the breeze on the beach.

You just need to let yourself go with the flow, feel every inch of it, and don’t overthink all the potential drawbacks. At the end of the day, when you look back on the amazing things that happened, you’ll feel more alive than ever.

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Move Outside Your Comfort Zone

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There may be different risks or perilous events that can cause an accident on your part. However, if you are willing and open to things, traveling will make you an incredibly well-rounded person. With the many things you can experience in the process, a wholesome change can unfold in you as you spend time traveling to more and more places.

The more you discover, experience, and see various places, the more you realize how small you are, how big the world is, and how much it has to offer. With that in mind, you start to focus on what matters most and stop being disappointed by the little things.

Nevertheless, the most important part is that travel experiences will surely pull you out of your comfort zone. Even without the numerous activities during the trip, going by yourself is adventurous enough.

During your journey, there are many uncertain times where you might want to change your plans or make quick decisions. Because of this, travel will test and help you engage your analytical and problem-solving skills, resulting in a more independent and resilient you.

You feel secure and safe in your comfort zone, so much so that you become stagnant and resistant to change. So, the idea of breaking out of it may seem scary at times. This is even more reason to do it!

Traveling is one of the many ways for you to learn and grow up. Since it is highly possible to encounter uncomfortable and unfamiliar situations, you get the chance to understand and learn how to cope. Being in a new place with different people, who have diverse cultures, traditions, values, and languages, strips all the familiarity away.

Yes, it can be a little bit scary, but once you figure out your way to connect with people despite the many differences, you can eventually navigate smoothly on different foreign environments. Also, you can become wiser and smarter in every decision you make.

Know Life’s Purpose

Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/blue-concrete-pavement-with-100m-sprint-paint-60230/

Meeting people from different walks of life and living in various socioeconomic, cultural, and religious settings can lead to encountering a lot of realizations about life. Moreover, you will find the means to know and understand yourself better than ever.

Also, seeing different people who need help and support might evoke a sense of compassion and warmth within you. It can help you become more motivated to question yourself, your purpose, and life’s meaning.

Travel can also be a way to look at the bright side and realize your blessings, thus increasing your experience of gratitude and satisfaction, which invokes a positive attitude with the highest frequency of positive emotion.

Traveling or moving abroad allows you to meet people, make new friends, and expand your connections. You can become the person you want to be.

You will gain a new perspective and way of seeing things when you travel abroad. Also, you will be able to see things differently. While you will inevitably miss your friends and family when you go abroad, you will be busy creating new memories and experiences.

Replenish Your Energy

Source: https://pixabay.com/en/wellness-massage-relax-relaxing-285587/

Totally into work, drowned with unfathomable stress and pressure, and too tired to continue, traveling will tune your tired body, mind, and soul. Traveling provides you with that much-needed time for yourself to relax and unwind.

With the fresh air and warm sunshine, it will increase the oxygen in your blood, give you more energy, and ward off stress, depression, and anxiety. A short trip can also increase and improve your performance at work because it recharges you.

Moreover, it gives off numerous physiological and psychological benefits that you need. Even with a short trip or vacation, your body gets enough space and time to replenish its energy reserves. So when the time comes to go back to your daily activities, you feel energized, enthusiastic, and ready to address issues in a new and fresh way.

Learn Something New

Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-reading-a-book-256546/

There are so many things you can learn when you travel abroad. Visiting new places and interacting with various people creates a pathway for knowing and understanding new perspectives, behaviors, thought patterns, attitudes, values, etc.

Moreover, it helps widen your mental horizon and makes you more receptive, accepting, and open-minded with different things. Besides that, it provides you with enough resources to learn different cultures, traditions, and languages.

You can also learn many new things from people belonging to different nationalities and religions. You cannot compare anything to the feeling of establishing new friendships and connections across borders. It sets you at ease to travel again to a particular country and know someone there who you can look forward to visiting again.

Furthermore, you get the opportunity to learn a new language or to speak it authentically and genuinely. You get to interact more and live among native speakers and use that language on a day-to-day basis. Once you get accustomed to that, it becomes easier for you to interact with the locals.

The good part about the whole traveling experience is that you get to learn things in a firsthand manner, up close and personal

Traveling abroad takes you to a whole new interpersonal level that you can’t imagine unless you do it. You cannot compare the genuine, wholesome, and life-changing experiences you get from it with the fun, enjoyment, joy, and happiness you can equally feel.

Because of the many surprising things the world has to offer, it becomes more worth it to travel. You can encounter many people with different cultures, values, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It becomes an opportunity for you to grow, know, learn, and understand yourself fully and genuinely.

You can experience all these exciting activities and exhilarating views when you travel abroad. Remember, traveling is not about the destination, but the journey.

Author Bio:

Tabitha Geller is a writer from Dallas who currently resides in Maryland. She loves to travel around and discover new things on her own. Tabitha is also a fan of reading, writing, and education. Moreover, she is up-to-date with current news about law, technology, and medicine. She is also interested in learning new things and sharing her knowledge with her readers.

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Escape, tourism

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• First Online: 01 January 2015
• Cite this living reference work entry

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The concept that individuals on holiday are motivated by a desire to escape is a central factor in a suite of motivational explanations for tourism. It appears in a number of forms and disciplinary formats. The sociologists Cohen and Taylor ( 1976 ) locate escape for holidays in a broader set of what they label “escape attempts,” which they define as purposeful pathways individuals choose to free themselves from everyday roles and the pressures of life. In formulating notions of stressful cores and desirable peripheries, both the early geographers and sociologists implicitly built the idea of escape into their models of tourist movements (Christaller 1963 ).

Moreover, the anthropologists have considered escape attempts with an approach to travel , involving the symbolic crossing of thresholds and moving into liminoid spaces (Turner and Turner 1978 ). In these spaces, there is some escape from the rules and social regulations and the opportunity, to some extent, to be not only somewhere...

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Bowen, D., and J. Clarke 2009 Contemporary Tourist Behavior: Yourself and Others as Tourists. Wallingford: CABI.

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Christaller, W. 1963 Some Considerations of Tourism Location in Europe: The Peripheral Regions. Regional Science Association Papers 12:95-105.

Cohen, S., and L. Taylor 1976 Escape Attempts. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Molz, J. 2012 Travel Connections. London: Routledge.

Pearce, P. 2011 Tourist Behavior and the Contemporary World. Bristol: Channel View.

Pearce, P., and U. Gretzel 2012 Dead Zone Tourism. International Journal of Tourism Studies 12(2):1-20.

Turner, U., and E. Turner 1978 Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.

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School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Honggen Xiao

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Pearce, P.L. (2014). Escape, tourism. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_517-1

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• THE BIG IDEA

Why travel should be considered an essential human activity

Travel is not rational, but it’s in our genes. Here’s why you should start planning a trip now.

In 1961, legendary National Geographic photographer Volkmar Wentzel captured two women gazing at the surf off Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. This and all the other images in this story come from the National Geographic image collection.

I’ve been putting my passport to good use lately. I use it as a coaster and to level wobbly table legs. It makes an excellent cat toy.

Welcome to the pandemic of disappointments. Canceled trips, or ones never planned lest they be canceled. Family reunions, study-abroad years, lazy beach vacations. Poof. Gone. Obliterated by a tiny virus, and the long list of countries where United States passports are not welcome.

Only a third of Americans say they have traveled overnight for leisure since March, and only slightly more, 38 percent, say they are likely to do so by the end of the year, according to one report. Only a quarter of us plan on leaving home for Thanksgiving, typically the busiest travel time. The numbers paint a grim picture of our stilled lives.

It is not natural for us to be this sedentary. Travel is in our genes. For most of the time our species has existed, “we’ve lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers moving about in small bands of 150 or fewer people,” writes Christopher Ryan in Civilized to Death . This nomadic life was no accident. It was useful. “Moving to a neighboring band is always an option to avoid brewing conflict or just for a change in social scenery,” says Ryan. Robert Louis Stevenson put it more succinctly: “The great affair is to move.”

What if we can’t move, though? What if we’re unable to hunt or gather? What’s a traveler to do? There are many ways to answer that question. “Despair,” though, is not one of them.

In this aerial view from 1967, wall-to-wall seaside sunbathers relax under umbrellas or on beach towels in Ocean City, Maryland .

A 1967 fall festival in Guadalajara, Mexico , starred traditionally costumed musicians and dancers.

We are an adaptive species. We can tolerate brief periods of forced sedentariness. A dash of self-delusion helps. We’re not grounded, we tell ourselves. We’re merely between trips, like the unemployed salesman in between opportunities. We pass the days thumbing though old travel journals and Instagram feeds. We gaze at souvenirs. All this helps. For a while.

We put on brave faces. “Staycation Nation,” the cover of the current issue of Canadian Traveller magazine declares cheerfully, as if it were a choice, not a consolation.

Today, the U.S. Travel Association, the industry trade organization, is launching a national recovery campaign called “ Let’s Go There .” Backed by a coalition of businesses related to tourism—hotels, convention and visitor bureaus, airlines—the initiative’s goal is to encourage Americans to turn idle wanderlust into actual itineraries.

The travel industry is hurting. So are travelers. “I dwelled so much on my disappointment that it almost physically hurt,” Paris -based journalist Joelle Diderich told me recently, after canceling five trips last spring.

(Related: How hard has the coronavirus hit the travel industry? These charts tell us.)

My friend James Hopkins is a Buddhist living in Kathmandu . You’d think he’d thrive during the lockdown, a sort-of mandatory meditation retreat. For a while he did.

But during a recent Skype call, James looked haggard and dejected. He was growing restless, he confessed, and longed “for the old 10-countries-a-year schedule.” Nothing seemed to help, he told me. “No matter how many candles I lit, or how much incense I burned, and in spite of living in one of the most sacred places in South Asia, I just couldn’t change my habits.”

When we ended our call, I felt relieved, my grumpiness validated. It’s not me; it’s the pandemic. But I also worried. If a Buddhist in Kathmandu is going nuts, what hope do the rest of us stilled souls have?

I think hope lies in the very nature of travel. Travel entails wishful thinking. It demands a leap of faith, and of imagination, to board a plane for some faraway land, hoping, wishing, for a taste of the ineffable. Travel is one of the few activities we engage in not knowing the outcome and reveling in that uncertainty. Nothing is more forgettable than the trip that goes exactly as planned.

Related: Vintage photos of the glamour of travel

Travel is not a rational activity. It makes no sense to squeeze yourself into an alleged seat only to be hurled at frightening speed to a distant place where you don’t speak the language or know the customs. All at great expense. If we stopped to do the cost-benefit analysis, we’d never go anywhere. Yet we do.

That’s one reason why I’m bullish on travel’s future. In fact, I’d argue travel is an essential industry, an essential activity. It’s not essential the way hospitals and grocery stores are essential. Travel is essential the way books and hugs are essential. Food for the soul. Right now, we’re between courses, savoring where we’ve been, anticipating where we’ll go. Maybe it’s Zanzibar and maybe it’s the campground down the road that you’ve always wanted to visit.

(Related: Going camping this fall? Here’s how to get started.)

James Oglethorpe, a seasoned traveler, is happy to sit still for a while, and gaze at “the slow change of light and clouds on the Blue Ridge Mountains” in Virginia, where he lives. “My mind can take me the rest of the way around this world and beyond it.”

It’s not the place that is special but what we bring to it and, crucially, how we interact with it. Travel is not about the destination, or the journey. It is about stumbling across “a new way of looking at things,” as writer Henry Miller observed. We need not travel far to gain a fresh perspective.

No one knew this better than Henry David Thoreau , who lived nearly all of his too-short life in Concord, Massachusetts. There he observed Walden Pond from every conceivable vantage point: from a hilltop, on its shores, underwater. Sometimes he’d even bend over and peer through his legs, marveling at the inverted world. “From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow,” he wrote.

Thoreau never tired of gazing at his beloved pond, nor have we outgrown the quiet beauty of our frumpy, analog world. If anything, the pandemic has rekindled our affection for it. We’ve seen what an atomized, digital existence looks like, and we (most of us anyway) don’t care for it. The bleachers at Chicago ’s Wrigley Field; the orchestra section at New York City ’s Lincoln Center; the alleyways of Tokyo . We miss these places. We are creatures of place, and always will be.

After the attacks of September 11, many predicted the end of air travel, or at least a dramatic reduction. Yet the airlines rebounded steadily and by 2017 flew a record four billion passengers. Briefly deprived of the miracle of flight, we appreciated it more and today tolerate the inconvenience of body scans and pat-downs for the privilege of transporting our flesh-and-bone selves to far-flung locations, where we break bread with other incarnate beings.

Landscape architects work in their Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , studio in 1955.

A tourist photographs a towering century plant in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1956.

In our rush to return to the world, we should be mindful of the impact of mass tourism on the planet. Now is the time to embrace the fundamental values of sustainable tourism and let them guide your future journeys. Go off the beaten path. Linger longer in destinations. Travel in the off-season. Connect with communities and spend your money in ways that support locals. Consider purchasing carbon offsets. And remember that the whole point of getting out there is to embrace the differences that make the world so colorful.

“One of the great benefits of travel is meeting new people and coming into contact with different points of view,” says Pauline Frommer, travel expert and radio host.

So go ahead and plan that trip. It’s good for you, scientists say . Plotting a trip is nearly as enjoyable as actually taking one. Merely thinking about a pleasurable experience is itself pleasurable. Anticipation is its own reward.

I’ve witnessed first-hand the frisson of anticipatory travel. My wife, not usually a fan of travel photography, now spends hours on Instagram, gazing longingly at photos of Alpine lodges and Balinese rice fields. “What’s going on?” I asked one day. “They’re just absolutely captivating,” she replied. “They make me remember that there is a big, beautiful world out there.”

Many of us, myself included, have taken travel for granted. We grew lazy and entitled, and that is never good. Tom Swick, a friend and travel writer, tells me he used to view travel as a given. Now, he says, “I look forward to experiencing it as a gift.”

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Travel Better, Cheaper, Longer

What Does Travel Mean to You?

A few years ago, I went around the world and asked people what travel meant to them. As I travel the country on my current book tour and hear everyone’s reasons for travel, I’m reminded of that experience.

Travel means something different to every single person in the world.

There are a million and one reasons to travel. Many people travel the world to get the bug out of their system, or to check things off a list to say they’ve been there and done that. Some run to escape their problems. Some people travel simply to get drunk around the world.

For me, travel means many things. Travel is freedom . It’s about being able to do what I want and fill my day with excitement. Travel was an escape. Travel was “elsewhere”. That place where exciting things and people resided. It was escaping the Matrix to learn about the world, why people do what they do, and how they act. It’s about pushing myself to the limit and getting more comfortable in my own skin.

But I wondered what motivates other people to do the same.

I have my theories of course.

But I wanted to hear it from people directly.

So, during an extended trip, I asked people I met on the road one question:

“What does travel mean to you?”

And here is what they said:

I loved hearing everyone’s answers because it so accurately describes all the various reasons that push us to travel the world, learn about the people in it, and ourselves.

Now, tell me in the comments below:

What does travel mean to you?

Share what drives you.  

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner . It’s my favorite search engine because it searches websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld . If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as it consistently returns the cheapest rates for guesthouses and hotels.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

• SafetyWing (best for everyone)
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• Medjet (for additional evacuation coverage)

Want to Travel for Free? Travel credit cards allow you to earn points that can be redeemed for free flights and accommodation — all without any extra spending. Check out my guide to picking the right card and my current favorites to get started and see the latest best deals.

Need Help Finding Activities for Your Trip? Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can find cool walking tours, fun excursions, skip-the-line tickets, private guides, and more.

Ready to Book Your Trip? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel. I list all the ones I use when I travel. They are the best in class and you can’t go wrong using them on your trip.

Got a comment on this article? Join the conversation on Facebook , Instagram , or Twitter and share your thoughts!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above may be affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you make a purchase. I recommend only products and companies I use and the income goes to keeping the site community supported and ad free.

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Why Do We Travel?

• Written by Nicolás Valencia
• Published on September 13, 2019

Everyone wants to travel the world, whether it's to meet new people, taste new food, or visit new places. Travel is consequently an extremely lucrative industry, but tourist destinations are getting more crowded than ever and associated pollution emissions are only worsening the climate emergency .

Why do we travel? In this edition of Editor's Talk , four editors from ArchDaily based in Lebanon, the United States, and Chile share their thoughts on the meaning of travel, and why tourists enjoying a beach in a location like Brazil should also care about the cities they visit.

Nicolas Valencia: Travel was June's Monthly Topic . Back then we published articles about architecture guides and travel-related typologies, but we didn't talk about the experience of traveling. What does travel mean to you?

Dima Stouhi : I was born and raised in Lebanon, but I'm moving to Switzerland next month. This will be the first time that I experience living abroad. Because Lebanon is so different from any other country, traveling is incredibly important for me to see how other people live and what other cultures are like.

Eric Baldwin: I often introduce myself by saying that I’m a farm kid from rural Iowa. My idea of the world, including different cultures and ways of working, was limited for much of my youth. In college, that worldview expanded greatly. I was able to study and travel around the world, in places like China, Italy, and Greece. I believe that context is everything; travel is one way to expand your context.

Christele Harrouk : I was born in Beirut too, coming from French roots, so It was always easier for me to travel, and it was always an option for me to live abroad. Nevertheless, I never opted for this choice: I did spend a couple of months here and there, but to me, the notion of home was more important. Traveling has opened my eyes to what this world holds, and it has also made me better appreciate what I had and took for granted.

Nicolas Valencia:  But it's still a luxury nowadays.

Eric Baldwin:  Travel has been priceless to me, but it’s also become terribly destructive to our environment. In many ways, it is a luxury. As Greta Thunberg showed when sailing across the Atlantic on a zero-emissions yacht, we have to come up with better ways to travel. Our current conditions are becoming more and more unsustainable.

Dima Stouhi:  Traveling is definitely a luxury now. Especially for people who need visas to travel, like me.

If you travel, you are a loser

Nicolas Valencia: In June we published an article titled The Age of Travel is Over . The author says that "if you travel to earn your living, you are a loser. If you travel to see places, or to learn, you are an enemy of the planet."

Eric Baldwin: I think it was meant to be a sort of provocation. Travel is still so important, but that doesn't mean there aren't better ways to travel. Or that we shouldn't continue to imagine new modes of connection that bring us together and expand our context without harming the environment.

Christele Harrouk:  Traveling is a pure form of learning, possibly the most genuine way of getting information, but I always go back to the idea that if you don't do anything with these experiences, they become useless and the whole process becomes futile in a way. The more I meet people, the more I discover that a lot of them, who pretend to roam the globe, are so closed into themselves.

Dima Stouhi:  The idea of traveling is different now. People want to travel to show everyone that they traveled or just for the sake of traveling. There isn't much thought to what they harm along the way.

Nicolas Valencia:  Dima has a point. Traveling has become a sort of meta-traveling:  visit  a place to say you visited a place.  I'm very critical of those who don't learn anything from traveling, but then, I think, "Why should they experience it the same way I do?"

Dima Stouhi:  That's the thing, it's a matter of perspective. I doubt that people "never learn" from traveling. Regardless of how different each individual is, at least one experience, building, or even meal is going to get stuck in their head. It's just a matter of what people are paying attention to while traveling.

Eric Baldwin:  We travel to work, to discover, to connect with family or friends, to get the perfect Instagram post, to escape. As long as we continue to question why, and whether we are doing so responsibly, I think travel will continue to have meaning. Beyond location, I think being a "good" vs. a "bad" tourist is part responsibility and part perspective. If you travel to escape your daily life and enjoy a beach in Brazil, but you don’t care to learn about the city, people, or culture you visit, is that inherently bad? Again, it’s a matter of context.

Cities for rich tourists

Nicolas Valencia: Bloomberg published a chart on Instagram a few days ago explaining that "tourist destinations are only going to get more crowded," especially in Europe. We recently saw Venice ban large cruises from its historical center . How do we think other cities are going to deal with tourism?

Dima Stouhi:  I support Venice's decision. I went to Vatican City last year in August. I remember at one point I just wanted to leave because of how crowded it was. We couldn't even stop for one second to look around us. There was no place to stand in the Sistine Chapel. It's sad.

Eric Baldwin:  It’s a tricky thing. It’s tied to preservation: when does saving something relegate it to becoming frozen, functionless scenery? Again, I go back to context. What does tourism give to a city, and what does it take away? Does heritage have a part to play? No city remains the same, and in turn, tourism and travel have to change too.

Dima Stouhi:  But Eric, the way we see it, preservation comes first because we know and appreciate the value of historical sites. The majority of people don't.

Eric Baldwin:  I question the value of historical sites. How do we measure relevance or heritage? Why are the pyramids worth preserving? It’s a question — and battle — of values and those things that define us. In turn, it’s directly related to why we travel.

Nicolas Valencia:  Countries such as Spain rely strongly on tourism — the industry accounts for around 13% of its GDP. It's hard to regulate if your city's economy relies so strongly on tourism. Anyway, I'd assume that restricting access to tourists will eventually punish middle-class tourists. 

Christele Harrouk:  Well, I'm not sure about this. Maybe not restrict accesses but make them more organized.

Dima Stouhi:  I don't believe that increasing prices and limiting access to rich tourists is the way to solve it. I think it's like what Christele said: it's how governments organize it that might make a difference.

Christele Harrouk:  This is the responsibility of the cities: they have to advertise different areas. It's not difficult, but they just don't take the initiative. Changes in marketing strategies can indirectly reduce the concentration of tourists in one place and divide it into many regions, making new areas grow and develop as well.

Nicolas Valencia:  If I'm going to Venice, I'm going to visit downtown, not a peripheral neighborhood.

Christele Harrouk:  But if there is a Zaha Hadid building in the periphery, you will go there, and spend less time downtown.

I Love City Branding

Nicolas Valencia:  We have been talking about Europe, but what about Latin America? Africa? Asia? Have you visited these regions?

Dima Stouhi:  Dream destinations, big budgets!

Nicolas Valencia:  In Latin America, we are more interested in visiting Europe and the US, rather than our own region. This is despite the fact that airfare has plummeted in this region, so it's cheaper than ever to travel across Latin America.

Christele Harrouk:  This may be global, but don't you think this is where city branding comes in hand?

Nicolas Valencia:  Sure, city branding defines what we think about them. But one thing that freaks me out about traveling is that after spending a week abroad, people think they gain a certain power to explain what a whole country is like. We each have different backgrounds of emotions, ideas, and expectations, so a gay man visiting a city after breaking up might have a totally different experience from a heterosexual woman who meets a guy in that same city. Each person's visions of the same city are completely unique, which means these narratives can't be universal.. 

Dima Stouhi:  I think these assumptions are a normal human reaction. Whatever is different from what they usually see, they pin-point it as if it were a flaw..

Eric Baldwin:  I think that's a very hard thing to change. You inherently have more perspective than someone who has never been there, but at the same time, you have an inherently limited understanding as well. I think the after-visit stereotypes will continue to happen, as Identity is always tied to travel and context. How that context is shaped happens in a myriad of ways, and defines who we are.

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This Is What Travel Means To Me

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A lot of people say they want to travel, but only very few get to actually experience the wonders of the world. Travel has a different meaning to everyone – some do it to escape their everyday life, some do it to take the kids on vacation, some do it to find themselves, but not me. I live to travel – I want to make a life of travel.

I’ve never wanted a conventional life, a life that I feel a need to escape, filled with discontent and comfort. I’ve never wanted to be stuck in an office building all day, never able to wander away when it’s time to leave. I’ve always wanted more than that, and it’s possible.

Travel means freedom, it means finding yourself lost in the most amazing ways.

Travel to me means waking up at 4 AM to get to the best spot to watch the sunrise. It means getting lost in a different country without Google maps and turning it into a whole new adventure. It means trying to communicate in broken English and being thankful that the other person is willing to try to understand you. It means learning patience and taking acceptance to a whole new level.

Travel to me means making friends with the locals and respecting their culture. It means spending time in dive bars and local restaurants because someone in passing recommended it to you. It means going places to truly explore, not just going places to say you’ve been there. It’s recognizing it’s better to stay in one country for a month than try to jam in three.

Travel to me means building relationships with people you never would have met otherwise and treating them like family. It’s trusting people you barely know and putting your faith in the world that things will all work out. It’s having a burning urge to see as much as possible and really live in the moment. It’s helping out when you see someone you don’t know struggling and sharing pieces of your heart with them.

Travel to me means getting lost in little bookstores and cafes. Striking up conversation with those around you and appreciating the tiny treasures in the area you discover. It’s experiencing as many new things as you can. It’s not getting upset when the bus is late and learning how to laugh at the situations you get into.

Travel to me means learning to live with the bare minimum and realizing that’s all you really need in life. It’s realizing that possessions do nothing but suffocate you and that happiness comes from freedom. It’s living simply and sleeping soundly in places you’ve never heard of with a hostel packed with eager strangers, like yourself.

Travel means being happy with a little bit of everything. It’s thrilling and heartbreak, it’s exciting and scary, it’s every emotion wrapped up into a sea of memories and experiences that you wouldn’t trade for the world.

All I want from travel is to bask in the bliss I feel and learn to appreciate every moment life brings me. I want to form relationships that are going to leave me in tears when I’m forced to say goodbye. I want to learn as much as I can from everyone I cross paths with about their culture and lifestyles. I want to breathe in unfamiliar air and exhale fear and uncertainty.

I want to trust that where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be. I want to look past what’s right in front of me and learn to love the world harder for all it truly is.

Becca Martin

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Keep up with Becca on Instagram , Twitter , Amazon and becca-martin.com

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Definition of escape verb from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• Two prisoners have escaped.
• They were caught trying to escape .
• escape from somebody/something He escaped from prison this morning.
• She attempted to escape from the pirates holding her hostage.
• escape somebody/something She managed to escape her captors.
• He escaped prison with two other inmates.
• Apparently, they had escaped somehow and gotten home.
• He got hurt while struggling to escape.
• It was stupid of Lee to let them escape.
• be impossible to
• escape alive
• escape somebody’s clutches
• escape from it all

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• Although he had no idea what life there would be like, he had to take the chance to escape.
• escape from something She managed to escape from the burning car.
• escape into/to something (figurative) As a child he would often escape into a dream world of his own.
• We were able to escape to the countryside during the summer months.
• escape with something I escaped with only minor injuries.
• + adj. Both drivers escaped unhurt .
• to escape unharmed/uninjured/unscathed
• escape something She was lucky to escape punishment.
• They were glad to have escaped the clutches of winter for another year.
• The pilot escaped death by seconds.
• There was no escaping the fact that he was overweight.
• escape doing something He narrowly escaped being killed.
• I need to escape. I want to go away from here.
• It was easy to escape in the confusion of the besieged city.
• The survivors barely escape in whatever ships they can find.
• pilots who successfully escaped while their aircraft was being shot down
• Thieves escaped with property worth over $5 000.
• We would always go there to escape from it all.
• She eventually escaped to the US.
• They escaped into the forest.
• She only just escaped with her life.
• The driver escaped without injury.
• Tony may never escape his emotional struggle.
• a lonely man who wants to escape his lifestyle
• He had managed to escape the clutches of the police yet again.
• Scotland seems to have escaped the worst of the recession.
• She managed to escape the fate of the other rebels.
• The city largely escaped bombing in the campaign.
• So far the robbers have escaped justice.
• He fled the country to escape the king's wrath.
• The head of department cannot entirely escape responsibility for this situation.
• The police will not escape criticism in this affair.
• No man can escape his destiny.
• Her name escapes me (= I can't remember it) .
• It might have escaped your notice , but I'm very busy at the moment.
• errors that had escaped my notice
• They're so small they can easily escape notice.
• Put a lid on to prevent heat escaping.
• escape into something toxic waste escaping into the sea
• The container is sealed so the gas has no means of escaping into the air.
• As he twisted the pipe a trickle of water escaped.
• A groan escaped her lips.
• to try to prevent or avoid loss or damage when it is already too late to do so

Other results

• escape clauses
• make good your escape

Nearby words

Definition of 'escape'

Video: pronunciation of escape

escape in American English

Escape in british english, examples of 'escape' in a sentence escape, related word partners escape, trends of escape.

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Browse alphabetically escape

• escape a blaze
• escape a conclusion
• escape a criminal
• All ENGLISH words that begin with 'E'

Related terms of escape

• escape cock
• escape pipe
• escape plan
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Synonyms of escape

• as in to flee
• as in to evade
• as in flight
• as in evasion
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Thesaurus Definition of escape

 (Entry 1 of 2)

Synonyms & Similar Words

• break out (of)
• shove (off)
• sally (forth)
• disentangle
• enfranchise

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• hang around
• stick around
• steer clear of
• shuffle (out of)
• keep clear of
• fight shy of
• stay clear of
• weasel (out of)

Thesaurus Definition of escape  (Entry 2 of 2)

• deliverance
• close shave
• confinement
• imprisonment
• incarceration
• imperilment
• endangerment
• circumvention
• sidestepping

Synonym Chooser

How does the verb escape contrast with its synonyms?

Some common synonyms of escape are avoid , elude , eschew , evade , and shun . While all these words mean "to get away or keep away from something," escape stresses the fact of getting away or being passed by not necessarily through effort or by conscious intent.

When could avoid be used to replace escape ?

The words avoid and escape can be used in similar contexts, but avoid stresses forethought and caution in keeping clear of danger or difficulty.

When is it sensible to use elude instead of escape ?

The words elude and escape are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, elude implies a slippery or baffling quality in the person or thing that escapes.

When is eschew a more appropriate choice than escape ?

While in some cases nearly identical to escape , eschew implies an avoiding or abstaining from as unwise or distasteful.

When can evade be used instead of escape ?

In some situations, the words evade and escape are roughly equivalent. However, evade implies adroitness, ingenuity, or lack of scruple in escaping or avoiding.

When would shun be a good substitute for escape ?

The meanings of shun and escape largely overlap; however, shun often implies an avoiding as a matter of habitual practice or policy and may imply repugnance or abhorrence.

Phrases Containing escape

• hairbreadth escape
• narrow escape
• near escape

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Cite this entry.

“Escape.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/escape. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on escape

Nglish: Translation of escape for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of escape for Arabic Speakers

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Meaning of escape in Essential English Dictionary

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(Definition of escape from the Cambridge Essential Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Translations of escape

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