Since introverts carry the most important things within, they can thrive almost anywhere under any circumstances. They are consumate wanderers. Only one who is self-defined can move unscathed from land to land.
Introverts love to explore on their own.(probably why I love Morrowind so much) Anonymously wandering through a foreign locale is a mouth watering feast.
Within a few days, an extrovert already is getting homesick. They miss pizza and cheeseburgers, they’re sick and tired of going through the motions of taking pictures of old buildings and paintings they couldn’t care less about. Yet they still go through the motions because they scramble to fulfill expectations from back home even when in a foreign land.
Travel is liberation for an introvert. One set of conventions can be traded away for another that is more suitable to the needs of the moment.
There can be no homesickness:
An introvert does not truly have a home country. Wherever they grew up, they have always been treated as a foreigner.
When an introvert changes location to a foreign land, it is immensely refreshing. There is no longer that constant need to pretend to be a member of society.
Every society has its oppressive conventions but while traveling, an introvert can live in a free zone. People generally expect unorthodox behaviors from foreigners! An introvert thus has a license to be while abroad.
All the things that extroverts can’t stand:
-Different food
-Different culture
-A different history
Are candy for the introvert.
Seeing exactly what is the same and what is different from place to place fosters a truer understanding of what it means to be human.
The greatest glory of being an introvert traveler:
Seeing humanity in a larger context allows a liberation of mind and soul:
One sees how the society that has told them through all of life that they are Incorrect is no great authority but a common tiny despotism just like any other on this planet. There is nothing special about nor does it have any legitimacy. It is ‘might makes right’ and nothing more.
This knowledge absolves the introvert traveler of being a sin and of any lingering loyalties to the oppressive conventions they were raised with.
4 Comments
I can really relate to this, kind of, in a strange way.
I’m the type of introvert who hates leaving a nice nest. I do love of course looking around, and then coming back to to me safe nest.
I like travel, but not too much. It’s probably because I don’t like meeting people that often.
There is no nest of solitude like a room or bunk to yourself in a place where no one knows you.
When you don’t know the local language(s), one can go days at a time without any conversation beyond paying for things. One is left to stew in one’s inner reflections during overnight train rides, bus trips, and evenings spent alone and pleasantly tired in one’s room.
I have found in my experience, Mr. Xen, that the anonymity of a crowd offers a safety almost as impenetrable as privacy itself. Especially a crowd in which you cannot be held liable as a member.
You have a point: my introverted friends do not like to venture too far from their burrows.
If only you or they knew the intoxication of wandering completely free from the pressure of social expectations in a strange land…
You admit that the way of the explorer I have described stirs something in you.
Of course, that is why I love big cities. The irony of them being full of crowds gives you heaps of privacy. Because this huge crowd don’t know you, therefore you can wander amongst them alone without being bothered, hopefully.
Extroverts go to big cities and foreign lands for entirely different reasons.
They want a controlled social environment in a superficially different setting. Thus, they can boast to friends about an exotic experience while not actually doing anything they don’t usually do at home:
-They stay at resorts closed off in a dreamland away from the rest of the country.
-They spend their time in bars and clubs, an environment that is pretty much the same all the world round.
-They travel in noisy groups that can keep the influence of the local culture at bay.
-They travel long distances to go to beaches even if there are beaches just as good in their home country.
-They only eat food from familiar franchises and complain bitterly when they discover the menu is adjusted to the tastes of the local market.
An extrovert is defined by familiar, comfortable things.
Thus, the true wanderer/explorer/adventurer is by necessity an introvert.
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