studio non troppo : mindful design : facilitation

The only reason to travel is to do something that you can’t do unless you make the trip.

This is verging on a tautology, but some tautologies can be useful anyway. This one works like this: if you could get what you wanted or needed without traveling somewhere else to get it, you wouldn’t travel. You’d just stay home and get it.

If you just wanted an update from your manufacturing director in Belize on the production rate of your carbon nanotube umbrellas, you’d email from home. Getting the information doesn’t require you to drive to the airport, park, fly down to Belize, take the water taxi to Caye Caulker, walk down the beach until you found a suitable $18/night cabin, stow your stuff, walk down to the Split at the other end of the island, and meet your manufacturing director over a glass of rum and lime juice.

But you wouldn’t get that reassuring smile (or the taste of distilled sunshine) by staying at home and emailing, so that’s why you go.

It’s very easy to get mixed up on what constitutes the “ends” and what are the “means,” but it helps to take a minute and honestly consider, “what am I about to do here?” and “why?” It’s the only way to appreciate the trip.