Travel that changed my perspective, expanded my horizons, and . . . in the process . . . shaped my life.
Journeys are literal and figurative, temporal and spiritual. Interior journeys can take place without leaving home. Obviously not all life-changing travel has to be to distant lands. Recently, however, I have been thinking of past journeys in my life where I have moved physically as well as emotionally and intellectually. I’ve wanted to reflect on what I gained from seeing more of the world and what we have to lose as travel becomes more difficult in this time of self-inflicted geopolitical suicide.
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.”
Martin Buber
I was in college before I took my first airplane ride. It was another fifteen years after that before I traveled outside the U.S. Growing up in a large, middle-class family in the 1950s and 1960s, we didn’t just jump on an airplane when we felt the urge. Nonetheless, I caught the travel bug early.
Pico Iyer has touched on the subject of why we travel in a way that reflects my experience.
“We don’t travel,” Iyer wrote, “in order to move around—you’re traveling in order to be moved. And really what you’re seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you’re sleepwalking through your daily life . . . there’s this great undiscovered terrain that Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton and Emily Dickinson fearlessly investigated, and I want to follow in their footsteps.”
As Sarah Wilkie has noted, those of us with the means and inclination to travel are rewarded with amazing opportunities to learn about different cultures, different landscapes, different environments. We also learn about how similar we are to others around the world. Travel—which is truly a privilege—helps us learn to celebrate our diversity and rejoice in our similarities.
What follows are short takes on fifteen journeys that changed my life.
Springfield and Chicago 1963
The first family vacation I remember was a trip to Illinois in 1963. Two places shaped me forever: Wrigley Field, where I saw my first major league baseball game and became a fan for life; and Abraham Lincoln’s Home in Springfield, a place of autobiography. It was something from this place that gave Lincoln the strength and character to lead a nation.
Out of the ordinary can come extraordinary people.
Philadelphia 1976
A few weeks before the first national post-Watergate election I traveled to Philadelphia on my first airplane flight to attend my first National Trust Annual Preservation Conference—beginning a string of 41 over my career. Being in the rooms where the founders debated concepts such as the self-evident truths of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness made history come alive. The relevance of past, place, and present also exploded in my face when I wedged my way into the tens of thousands who filled four streets that came together at an intersection where Jimmy Carter was scheduled for a massive downtown rally. Here I was, participating in the political process in the city where the concept of a government, deriving powers from the consent of the governed, had its most powerful realization.
In casting my first vote for president, I would soon be a part of what Abraham Lincoln famously said was the ongoing fight to see if a nation dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” can long endure. That fight continues.
Charlottesville 1982
As a graduate student in Atlanta in 1982, I found time during spring break to marry Candice and take a honeymoon trip to Prospect Hill—a 1732 farmhouse bed & breakfast outside Charlottesville that has since gone upscale. A year later we moved to Staunton, just over the mountain, where we grew together as a couple, welcomed our children, and gathered lifetime friends and memories from our 15 years there.
Journeys are often about finding either something we’ve lost or discovery of something we’ve never seen before. And when we’re lucky, a journey with a lifetime partner is one of extraordinary discovery. I’ve been very, very lucky.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust
Richmond 1993
On a bright, clear, and wintery Sunday morning—December 20, 1992—two infants, each barely over 5 pounds in size, entered and forever changed our world. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time, because we wouldn’t learn of Andrew and Claire’s birth from the adoption agency until the next morning.
The journey I’m focused on here took place on January 14, 1993. We drove to Richmond in the morning, met them and their foster mom at the adoption agency, and then put them in their car seats and into our hearts forever. When we returned to Staunton they received a royal welcome from friends and family who decorated the house with balloons, left strollers and diapers on the front porch, and brought food over by the boat load. It was a good thing, because we were outnumbered. Twin infants and two adults . . . thank God the reinforcements arrived soon!
Through the years the milestones have been chronicled on More to Come. To watch them grow into the wonderful adults they’ve become has been the joy of our lives. We remember each phase of that growth, knowing that it wasn’t always easy (for them or for us), but secure in the knowledge that they were surrounded by love.
Whenever the passage of time comes up, I usually relay this story from 2014 of a mom with a set of boy-girl twins in front of me in the drug store line, with the children in their two-seater stroller. The kids were beautiful, and they were having the most wonderful conversation about shoes. The mom was so patient and kind. It was a joy to simply stand there and watch the love.
After passing along their prescription, the mom gathered her things to leave. I asked about the twins’ age. She replied that they were two-and-a-half. I smiled, and said I had 21-year-old boy-girl twins, and this brought back lots of memories. The mom asked if I had any advice. I replied simply, “Savor every moment.”
Northern Ireland 1998
One of my first real overseas trips was to Northern Ireland in December of 1998, just eight months after the Good Friday Peace Accords were signed. Belfast was just stepping away from The Troubles. Boarder crossings were no longer gated and controlled by armed soldiers. The constantly changing coastal landscapes of County Antrim and the Giants Causeway captivated and moved the soul.
In the cold of the coming winter I also discovered that Irish whiskey is great for warming chilled bones.
The Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded for the Good Friday Accords on our last day in the country. When I returned last fall I found a small remembrance at City Hall in Belfast of the transformative and life-changing work of President Bill Clinton and Senator George Mitchell in helping bring about those agreements. U.S. involvement meant something positive in the world. Today, more than ever, we need to hear and reflect upon these stories of American courage and leadership in difficult times.
Cuba 2001
I was on a small private plane with five other National Trust and ICOMOS representatives traveling to Cuba just two months after 9/11. We were meeting with the mayor of Havana and other representatives to discuss heritage conservation efforts. I’ll never forget the wealth—and the deterioration—of the historic architecture, the “time stands still” look from the 1950s, the eagerness of the government officials to show us small pockets of extraordinary preservation efforts, and the friendliness of the Cuban people.
History is always layered, much more complicated than the stories we often hear, and always under construction. Self-serving political slogans from all sides do little to make life better for a country’s citizens.
Ukraine 2006
Virtually every week since Russia illegally invaded Ukraine in 2022 I have thought back to my visit in 2006. In the words of Chris Hedges, Putin’s war in Ukraine is a “mythic” war, where those involved seek to imbue events with meanings they do not have. Of all the wonders of Ukraine I saw on that trip—Odessa, Yalta, and more—it was when we left the coastal resort cities and visited a small, rural village that the people of the country became much more than just workers in the hospitality and tourism industry.
One memory—that of a villager gathering reeds in the waterways near his home to use on his thatched roof—is what remains most vivid in my mind as I think of how the courageous Ukrainian people continue to defend democracy, even as our support ebbs and flows.
India 2007
In December of 2007, I traveled to India to participate in the establishment of the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO). It was an extraordinary trip which included an opportunity to see heritage conservation work in practice in South Asia; share the stage with the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh; visit Gandhi’s grave; and spend days touring world renowned sites such as the Taj Mahal.
I was reminded again and again of the longevity of history in India, where cultural worldviews have evolved over thousands of years, and how their perspective differs from the often truncated story we tell of our country.
Four Corners 2008
In the summer of 2008 our family took a two-week car tour of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. We marveled at the expansive western landscape; spent a magical day at the spiritual home of the Acoma pueblo; saw wonderful sights, not the least of which was a meteor shower over the Grand Canyon; and took our turn standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona.
Both Candice and I had taken fondly remembered western trips with our families when we were young. We were reminded that you can use your own memories in positive ways to build new, unique ones for your children.
Normandy 2013
If you don’t cry at Normandy, you may not have a soul.
Utah Beach. Omaha Beach. Row after row of headstones—crosses and the Star of David—most with the names of men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Others honoring those whose names are known only to God. Our 90-year-old next-door neighbor at the time told us he’d never been to Normandy but he had flown “over it on D-Day, trying to take out a German gun placement.” We were able to show August the photos of the beaches and, yes, the craters that remain from the bombs that fell on that day.
Ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things. Heroes all. And some live next door.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost Tour 2014
In the summer before Claire’s senior year in college, the two of us drove 4,590 miles and passed through 13 states to get from Washington, DC, to Claremont, CA. We called it our Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour. Yes, we took the northern route to go to Southern California. Over the course of the 19 days I wrote about the plains, mountains, valleys, coast lines, Great Lakes . . . you name it. To look at our country’s landscape day after day, as it changes going east to west and then north to south, is a life-enriching experience. Every mountain range we crossed was unique and breathtaking in its own way. Our rivers and lakes can be both powerful and peaceful. Unfortunately we have destroyed much of what is wonderful and beautiful about our country through greed and horrible development decisions.
I’m thankful I had a chance to see both the good and the bad with my extraordinary daughter. Let’s hope her generation and those that follow have enough time and political will to reset our destructive environmental policies, especially after this current period of backlash and rule by oligarchs.
“We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.”
Anand Giridharadas
Rome 2016
I was so very fortunate to have six weeks at the American Academy in Rome as part of a sabbatical. It provided the opportunity to immerse myself in the life, architecture, food, people, and culture of an international city for weeks at a time. My former colleague Tom Mayes, a fellow of the Academy, has written that, “Old places are beautiful,” fully recognizing that beauty is not a simple topic. Nonetheless this one sentence captures key elements for me, while also describing my time in Rome:
As I read and talk to people about beauty, a few words and phrases capture the experiences I’ve had—and that I believe other people also have—at beautiful old places: delight, exhilarating surprise, speechlessness, the language of timeless reality, echo of an ideal, sudden unexpected harmony of the body, mind and world.
Japan 2019
Six weeks after my retirement I joined a two-week exploration of Japan. The World Heritage sites were powerful and moving, especially as one found places away from the crowds to privately indulge in the architecture, gardens, and spiritual meaning of the spaces. More modern sites, such as Hiroshima and I.M. Pei’s Miho Museum, were also important touchstones for understanding parts of history and life in today’s Japan.
Once again it was at the more out-of-the-way places where I found the time and space to connect more deeply with the culture of our host nation. The small traditional village of Uchiko on Shikoku Island featured an exquisite, full-scale kabuki theatre, one of my favorite buildings from the entire tour. Similarly, Toko-ji in Hagi, a medieval center of Japan, was a large site where you could lose yourself among the hundreds of moss-covered stone lanterns guarding the graves of five Mori lords.
As was true often throughout this trip, the effect at Toko-ji was sublime.
Mekong River Cruise 2022
It was a thing of beauty.
Standing on the bank of the Siem Reap River near the Terrace of the Leper King in Angkor Thom, Cambodia, the young man cast his fishing net much as his ancestors had done over the centuries. My camera froze that moment from our two week visit to Vietnam and Cambodia in October of 2022, but it was the timelessness I wanted to capture.
The practice of heritage conservation works within a world touched by the passage of hours, days, years, decades, and centuries. Landmarks, you see, are not created by architects and builders alone. What really makes a site a landmark is the place it holds in a community’s memory. Memories are created over time. Memories are poets, not historians. Memories can be deeply spiritual.
My memories from one of the most extraordinary journeys I’ve been privileged to make will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Next year Candice and I are revisiting this land to once again explore the rich history and vibrant culture of tropical Indochina as National Trust Tours takes us to Vietnam & Cambodia—Cruising the Mekong River. If you care to join us, I promise it will touch you in deep and meaningful ways.
Paris 2022/2025
Finally, our family first visited Paris in 2022 as a celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary, and we returned in 2025 for an even longer stay in France to celebrate my 70th birthday. Maybe the best way to express why we return and return (and plan to return again) is simply to call upon the incomparable Tatiana Eva-Marie for one explanation.
“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”
Carl Jung
Travel, by placing us in an environment that is different from what we experience in our daily lives, puts us in the frame of mind to live in ways that bring wonder, joy, and empathy. Our journeys are more meaningful when we keep some room in our hearts for the unimaginable. Travel allows us time to dawdle and dream, and perhaps even to be bewildered!
I have found that when you travel it pays to leave enough empty space to feel and experience life. Those gaps are where the magic begins. And when you think of the places you’ve been, as I do here, don’t be too hard on yourself if a few of the facts slip. Just get the poetry right.
More to come . . .
DJB
Lincoln homeplace photo by Yinan Chen from Pixabay. Photo of Northern Ireland’s Dunluce castle by Claire Brown from a 2009 youth group pilgrimage. Havana photo from Unsplash. Goulding’s View at Monument Valley by Claire Brown. DJB at the World’s Largest Ball of Twine by Claire Brown. Bridge in Paris by Leonard Cotte on Unsplash. Sunrise over Angkor Wat photo at the top of the post and all other pictures not credited are by DJB
MORE TO COME... 