Travel
US: Traveling) is the transport of people. Reasons include:
- tourism, traveling for recreation; this may apply to the traveling itself, or the traveling may just be the necessary investment to arrive at a desired location
- visiting friends and family
- trade, in antiquity certain groups of people covered vast distances in order to exchange goods available in only certain locations.
- commuting
- going to various work locations, including meetings
- migration, starting to live somewhere else
- communities of nomadic people move from place to place, rather than settling down in one location.
- pilgrimage, traveling for religious reasons
The word originates from the Middle English word, travailen (to toil), which itself comes from the French word, 'travailler' (travail). A common definition of travel is 'To go from one place to another, as on a trip; journey,' and so it is no wonder that the origins of the word seem arduous.
Some of the most common historical reasons to travel have been:
migration,
pilgrimage and
exploration. The nature of these three has been a cause for much personal and cultural sacrifice, as in the cases of
Aboriginals, pilgrims to
Mecca and
Captain James Cook.
Trade on the other hand has often allowed the exchange and blending of cultures and brought innovations to people.
It is only within these last few hundred years that we have begun to think of travel synonymously with the idea of a holiday or vacation; in other words, an escape from our daily 'toil' and 'travails'.
See also
