Day 134 – Getting there is important too

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The Art of the Detour: Why the Journey Really Is the Destination

We are obsessed with “arriving.”

In our modern, high-speed lives, we treat travel like a logistical problem to be solved. We optimise for the shortest flight, the fastest highway route, and the most direct train line. We view the time spent in transit as a tax—a boring, uncomfortable middle-ground that we must pay in order to unlock the reward of our destination.

But what if we’ve got it backward? What if the destination is merely the period at the end of a long sentence’s worth of experience?

There is a profound, often overlooked truth in the adage: The journey is the destination. When we prioritise the “getting there,” travel shifts from a task into an art form. Here is why the road, the tracks, and the sky are often more important than the hotel lobby at the finish line.

The Myth of Through-Hiking Life

When we focus solely on the arrival, we live in a state of suspended animation. We are waiting for the vacation to start, waiting for the weekend to hit, waiting for the “real” life to begin.

When you prioritise the journey, however, you reclaim your time. You stop looking at your watch and start looking out the window. Whether it’s a winding coastal road in Italy or a cross-country Amtrak adventure, the journey forces a state of “positive boredom.” It clears the clutter of our digital lives, stripping away the emails and the notifications, leaving us with nothing but the rhythm of the movement and our own thoughts.

Serendipity Lives in the In-Between

The most memorable moments of travel rarely happen at the planned tourist attractions. They happen in the “in-between.”

Think about it: have you ever had a life-changing conversation with a stranger on a plane? Stumbled upon a roadside diner that serves the best pie you’ve ever tasted? Found a quiet, nameless overlook while your GPS recalculated a missed turn?

These moments are the dividends of a slow journey. When you take the long way, you invite the universe to surprise you. The “in-between” is where serendipity lives. A direct flight to Paris gets you to a croissant faster, but a slow train ride across the countryside introduces you to the landscape, the architecture, and the people that make Paris what it is.

The Psychology of Transition

There is a psychological necessity to the process. If you want to change your mindset, you need a buffer zone.

Travelling acts as a psychological decompression chamber. The time spent sitting in a car, train, or boat allows your brain to shift gears. You are physically detaching from the stresses of your home life and mentally preparing for the expansion of travel. If you teleported instantly to your destination, you’d likely arrive with your “home” brain still plugged in. The journey forces a transition, ensuring that by the time you arrive, you are actually ready to receive the experience.

How to Shift Your Focus

If you’ve spent your life rushing, how do you learn to savour the transit?

• Ditch the “Most Efficient” Option: Next time you’re booking a trip, ask yourself, “Which way would be the most interesting?” instead of “Which way is the cheapest/fastest?”
• Embrace Surface Travel: Whenever possible, choose trains over planes, or a scenic highway over an interstate. The lower your speed, the more world you get to see.
• Build in “Gap Days”: Schedule a day of transit that has no deadline. If you get into a town at 2:00 PM, let that be the goal. If you see a beautiful village at 10:00 AM, stop for a few hours.
• Curate Your Transit: Treat the journey as an activity. Bring the book you’ve been dying to read, the playlist you’ve been saving, or a journal to document the passing landscapes.

The Final Stop

The destination will always be there. The Eiffel Tower isn’t going anywhere; the beach will still be sand when you arrive. But the experience of the trip—the changing quality of light on the horizon, the shifting accents of the people at the rest stop, the feeling of crossing a border or a time zone—that is a fleeting, ephemeral moment that happens once.

Don’t just endure the trip. Experience it. Because when you look back on your life, you won’t remember the check-in time at your hotel. You’ll remember the way the sun hit the road, the songs you sang with the windows down, and the winding, dusty, beautiful path that led you exactly where you needed to be.

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