There is a difference between being a traveler and being a tourist, and it doesn't have a damn thing to do with how many stamps you have in your passport.
A tourist goes through the motions. A traveler uses his senses.
A tourist looks at the scenery. A traveler becomes part of it.
A tourist takes a bus to see something worth photographing. A traveler gets off the bus, wanders down the street, follows the smell of something cooking, hears laughter coming from a tavern, and walks inside to find out what the hell is so funny.
One takes pictures of the world. The other experiences it.
You don't have to go to Paris, Rome, or some little village in Tuscany to be a traveler. You can do it on a Tuesday afternoon in your own hometown. You just have to be willing to participate in the life happening around you.
I have mentioned before that I do a lot of things alone. I will go to a concert, a restaurant, a festival, or a ballgame without giving a second thought to whether somebody is coming along.
I may be alone, but I am never lonely.
There is a big difference.
Being alone means you showed up without somebody. Being lonely means you haven't figured out how to enjoy the company of the world around you.
I have discovered that the world is full of interesting people if you are willing to put down your phone, look somebody in the eye, and say hello.
The other day, I wandered into the York for a burger and to watch the Indiana football game. That was the entire itinerary. A cheeseburger, a cold beer, and a few hours of football.
I ended up meeting a couple from Oklahoma who were in town for a funeral.
Think about that for a moment.
Two people had traveled hundreds of miles under unfortunate circumstances. I had traveled a few miles because I was hungry and wanted to watch football.
Somehow, our paths crossed in a neighborhood bar.
We talked, we laughed and we shared a little piece of our lives that none of us had planned on sharing that afternoon.
I went looking for a hamburger and a football game and came home with a story about two people from Oklahoma.
That is traveling.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to an Oktoberfest celebration. I ended up spending the afternoon with a group of visitors from Canada and England. Complete strangers when the day began. Before it was over, I was taking them to a German restaurant on Chicago's North Side, a place they never would have discovered on their own.
They came to Chicago as tourists. For a few hours, we were all travelers and that is the beauty of it.
Nobody planned the afternoon. Nobody made reservations for a friendship. There wasn't a tour guide holding up a little flag or a bus waiting at the curb.
Just a handful of people who happened to be in the same place at the same time and decided to enjoy each other's company.
I suspect that is how some of the best moments in life happen.
We spend an awful lot of time planning our lives. We make schedules, set appointments, establish routines, and convince ourselves that a successful day is one in which everything goes according to plan.
Wake up.
Go to work.
Come home.
Eat dinner.
Watch television.
Go to bed.
Rinse and repeat.
There is nothing wrong with a routine. Sometimes we become tourists in our own lives.
We ride the same train every day, stare out the same window, and never bother to get off and see what is happening on the other side of the street. While we are busy checking things off our daily list, life is putting on one hell of a show.
There is an old man sitting at the end of the bar with eighty years of stories nobody has bothered to ask him about. There is a musician playing his heart out in a little neighborhood joint for twelve people. There is a trail along a river on the other side of Riverside that is just as interesting as the Seine or Thames.
There is a stranger sitting next to you who might have something to say that changes the way you look at the world or maybe he just tells a dirty joke that makes you laugh.
Either way, you have gained something.
I think one of the great mistakes we make is believing that we have to go somewhere extraordinary to experience something extraordinary.
We save our curiosity for vacations. We save our sense of adventure for long weekends. We save our willingness to meet new people for places where nobody knows our name.
Then we come home, unpack the suitcase, and put our curiosity back in the closet until the next trip. What a shitty waste of a perfectly good life.
The world doesn't stop being interesting just because you have returned to your own ZIP code.
In fact, I would argue that the older we get, the more important it becomes to keep traveling through the ordinary days of our lives. Not necessarily farther, just deeper.
Pay attention to the smells coming from a bakery on a chilly morning. Listen to the conversation at the next table. Feel the autumn leaves crunch beneath your loafers. Walk into a place you have never been. Order something you have never tried. Strike up a conversation with somebody who doesn't look, think, or live like you.
Get your hands dirty and use your senses. Be curious enough to ask a question and patient enough to listen to the answer, and don't be afraid to do something by yourself. You might discover that being alone is sometimes the best way to meet somebody new.
I have collected a shit ton of things over the years, most of which I should have thrown away a long time ago, but the things I treasure most are not sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
They are the conversations, the laughter, the unexpected friendships, and the stories that began when I walked out the door with absolutely no idea what the day had in store for me.
The best souvenirs in life aren't things we bring home. They are the people who become part of our story.
So, travel through your life, Chalkheads.
Touch it.
Smell it.
Hear it.
Taste it.
Feel it.
Do not spend your days sitting behind the glass of a tour bus, watching your own life pass by while somebody else tells you what you are looking at.
Get off the fucking tour bus.
Take the unfamiliar path. Walk along that river. Sit down next to a stranger. Buy somebody a beer. Ask a question. Listen to a story.
You don't need a passport, a suitcase, or a plane ticket.
You just need to open your eyes, open your mind, and occasionally open your mouth.
Because someday, when the journey is over, nobody is going to care how many pictures you took along the way, but there might be a couple from Oklahoma who remember the guy they met while watching a football game in Chicago. Somewhere in Canada or England, there might be somebody telling a story about a Chicago guy named Jumbo who took them to a German restaurant after an Oktoberfest celebration.
That is a pretty good way to leave your footprints on the world.
Do not just pass through your life. Get your hands dirty, make new friends, raise a little hell, and be astonished by the gusto you find along the way…
