The true traveler can heal anywhere. The moment you have to go home to heal, you cease being a traveller, and become homesick. Once home, you heal and are ready to go out into the world again, but in your heart of hearts you know you have to come back home. You have ceased to be a traveler.

Travel brings with it pains and hurts you never know you could experience. You recuperate, heal, become whole, when you see that sunset, that peak in the distance, or below you, that little pool of sunlight on the shady leafy forest floor, that fog of spray heralding a nearby waterfall, the temple towers in the distance, the shepherd leading home his flock in the open country, the open road in front of you, the inviting waters of a forest stream, the ancient ruins that beckon… The moment these things lose their ability to heal, you have ceased to be a traveler.

The true traveler never has a home, inasmuch as you define home as the place you go to heal, to recuperate, to get back your stregth, to find your mind, to rest. Rather, if you are a true traveller, you can do this wherever you are. A good night’s sleep or two, a fellow traveler’s tales, a wizened old man’s question or a child’s advice, a sparrowhawk diving in a rush, a wallowing buffalo, a hot cup of tea – each one of us has our own panacea, our own magic bullet. The moment you lose this, you cease to be a traveler.

For a true traveler, as Quick Gun Murugun says with his unique brand of humble pride, “Yeh poora duniya mera watan!” (“The whole world is my nation”)

In the picture: A beautiful view over the Fort Augustus locks in Scotland

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