Beyond Bounds Blog

When you think of travel, what kind of adventure does your imagination create? Are you backpacking through multiple cities, staying a few days in each place and having a blast? Do you see the entire world in one swoop? Or maybe you envision starting a life in a new country and spending a long time in one place. Do you want to learn a foreign language fluently and really dive into the local culture?

I’ve found that for the most part there are two different kinds of travelers. There is the broad traveler and the rooted traveler.

The Broad Traveler:

The broad traveler accounts for 80%+ of all travelers. Sites like thetravelersnotebook.com are made especially for broad travelers. These are the excitement seekers who want to see everything they can. Broad travelers might visit multiple countries in a year and move quite often, or they might simply go on a few day tourist trips to multiple cities.

The broad traveler feels that his native place of birth is his home and nothing can replace that, but is still gravitated out to see the world. He knows that he will go back home one day and settle down, but he wants to see what the world has to offer first, or he is already settled down but can’t help but be curious about what the world is doing.

The broad traveler may meet a lot of people but won’t make any strong friendships, mostly due to the nature of his traveling; strong relationships take time to build. The broad traveler sees the world in its entirety, but lacks depth of knowledge of any individual place.

The Rooted Traveler:

Rooted travelers make up a smaller percent of travelers in the world, but most people know one because they are so different from everyone else. The rooted traveler moves abroad and stays put for a long period of time - rooting himself to one place. He settles down into a routine in a single place, often ignoring the tourist areas and sticking to the real areas and activities that natives participate in.

The rooted traveler is more interested in long term knowledge and benefits from deep and lasting interaction with locals in a single place instead of the excitement that comes from traveling and meeting a broad range of people. This traveler gets attached to one or a handful of places and does not see the world as a whole. He is happy to have more than one home.

I am a rooted traveler. I am very attached to four cities: My hometown Chico, my college town San Diego, then Hong Kong (even though I only lived there for 3 months), and finally Beijing. There are many tourist attractions in each city that I have never been to and don’t feel a real urge visit, and I have a very calm lifestyle that is fit for long-term stability. I have many close friends in each city and feel completely comfortable traveling between the four places. Outside of these places, however, I feel completely out of my element. I have dug my roots here and have trouble continuing with other international pursuits.

The Global Man:

The combination of a rooted traveler and a broad traveler is in my mind what a global man would be. He makes himself at home wherever he goes in the world, making close friends and relationships in each place, but does not get attached to any single place to the point that it inhibits him from further opportunities elsewhere geologically. He avoids the tourist traps and fast-food-travel of the broad traveler, but has a broad world vision that the rooted traveler lacks. He has the energy and excitement of the broad traveler and digs deep into the local cultures like the rooted traveler.

I want to become a global man. This will require a lot of adjustment in thinking and proper career preparation. I think that this is what this site is truly about - how to strip off ideas of boundaries and live at home anywhere and everywhere in the world. I have met a few people who are very close to reaching this and I am amazed by their ability and accomplishments.

One of the most influential people in my life, well a couple, I met while in Hong Kong. This couple had spent their days moving from country to country, spending between 2 and 5 years in each place. They would take turns working - only one person worked per country. In Hong Kong the wife was working while the husband, over 50 now, was going back to school to get a degree in a new field. They have lived in France, USA, Africa, and other parts of Asia. For those of us with international dreams, this is a dream come true. You could do this and in your own way. Imagine the possibilities.

So what kind of traveler are you?