Only connect

This epigraph in EM Forster’s Howard’s End implored Edwardian class-conscious society to look past the barriers and try to understand each other. In asking us to ‘only connect’ Forster asks us to find an overlapping point of interest, understanding and meaning, no matter what our background, to acknowledge that the space between us can easily be narrowed.

This idea has always resonated loudly with me. While it’s a credo I try to live my every day life by, it’s especially important to me with regard to travel. Travel is connection.

I know there’s a whole hierarchy of travel. Some define travel, real genuine travel, as only that kind of journey that involves making a twenty-four hour bus ride to a village high in the mountains of a third world country and teaching the local children English. These travellers throw away the Lonely Planet/iPhone, carry just one spare pair of underpants and happily forgo the comforts of a Western bathroom.

There are others who prefer every creature comfort and can’t bear the thought of public transport at all. They prefer coach travel or cruising. For them the journey is about getting away from home and all the related responsibilities and anxieties.

And there’s everything in between – Contiki tours and war travel, party groups and lone backpackers, volunteer stays and family visits. I probably sit in the in between.

I believe that everyone that leaves their home is a traveller, whether they take the road less travelled or the road first set by Thomas Cook. Personally, travel is about collecting stories, about witnessing something for the first time and of course, connecting. So that's what I'm going to write about! Enjoy the armchair travel.