Traveling: What's the Difference?

The idea of traveling makes me quiver with anticipation … mainly because I love traveling and there are so many things one can associate with it. Diving into the idea of travel in the literal sense can be a little boring, so this week Ron has us comparing and contrasting two types of travel. I have chosen to look at Roughing It by Mark Twain and In Xandu by William Dalrymple, one of my favorite readings of the semester.

The two readings in essence are easily contrastable in terms of travel since one was written in the late 1800s and the other in 1989. Hopefully we can all tell which piece was written when. Roughing It tells the story of Twain and his brother on their travels out west. Naturally during the late 1800s they were traveling by stage coach most of the way. He described the coach as “an imposing cradle on wheels” because of the way it bobbed and swayed along the road. He also talked of cramped space, first with three days’ delayed mail and then when a woman joined him and his brother for a very short portion of their journey. Twain’s journey also wasn’t the cleanest either, I think we can all recall the description of the comb … NASTY! Switching gears, In Xandu tells the story of a man’s rendition of Marco Polo’s journey to Asia. It is a more comfortable expedition; plane, tour bus, and a little hiking here and there. Dalrymple never complained much; at least it didn’t come off that way to me. There was a large portion of his writing that focused on a conversation that he had with a woman on a bus, but his encounter seemed more interesting if not pleasant compared to Twains.

After looking at how the two pieces are different, searching for similarities should be a little bit easier now. Although the mode of transportation was different, both Twain and Dalrymple were embarking on long journeys. Their travel allowed for them to also meet people along the way and ironically for both it was a woman.  Also, traveling in not-so-comfortable conditions seems to be a theme for these two pieces. Both Twain and Dalrymple experienced a situation that would make any germaphob cry for mercy.

When looking at the way that we travel, it really does make a potential experience different. At the end of Twains piece he followed up with a little excerpt on how it would have been to travel to the west by train. Everything that he had been through while traveling by stage coach would have been just a figment of imagination, something that he once heard from a passerby. I love all different types of transportation … and I cannot wait to be traveling in Belize by boat, jeep, and foot!