Make Guacamole, Not War

I agree—travel (for the most part) shouldn’t make one less happy unless we choose to never travel again.  That’s like getting a small taste of something addicting and then being “cut off”.  That thought DOES make me less happy!

It’s an interesting question that you pose, “does travel makes us less happy?”  It depends on your perspective.  Sometimes bad things happen in places that we may deem as beautiful.  The world is a fickle place indeed.  A traveler has two choices:  1)  remember their travels with fondness and joy, or 2) allow the media and the atrocities that may occur in places once visited taint their mind.  Being “happy” is a choice.  A traveler can choose to be a “happy traveler.”

What a wonderfully written piece, Jim. It is sad when the places we have visited, made friends in, wandered around in go through political and civil nightmares. These places become a part of us - and so we feel pain (as we do when a dear friend is having a rough time).
But never let it stop you from wandering - I don’t believe that having our eyes opened to the world can make us unhappy. Happiness or the lack thereof is an inside job.
ps I’ll see you at the BP Travel Writers Conference month. Look forward to meeting you.

I think the title of this post is a bestselling bumper sticker waiting to happen. Great article.

Nice piece, Jim. I was in Tzintzuntzan last year for Dia de los Muertos and I remember the grandmother of the family I met singing a song of her love for her state, Michoacán, while dancing on the grave of her husband. I remember feeling wistful for a few reasons. That I couldn’t memorialize my dead relatives in the same way. And that I’d never felt compelled to sing a song of pride for the place I’m from.

Thanks for all your kind words.

Needless to say, I definitely wouldn’t give up any of my travel experiences.

And Terry, I’ve had the same feeling when in Mexico for the Day of the Dead. It always struck me as a very healthy way to remember loved ones and celebrate their lives—and something European-American culture could learn from.

To be happy is a choice we all make. But probley one of the hardest things to keep up with once you’ve decided to follow that path.

And by the way I love avocados but only sense I went to Costa Rica and had them right off the tree!

Jim, Thank you for this perspective! Look forward to meeting eveyone who’s going to BP Conference, I’ll be there too!

Thanks, Lindsey.

I look forward to meeting you and Jenny at Book Passage!

I adore Mexico, lived there for two years, and can tell you that Michoacan is one of the most lushly beautiful states in Mexico.  When I was driving back to Mexico City from Patzcuaro, or maybe it was Valle de Bravo, a policeman rode with me all the way to Mexico City to show me how to get into town, since I didn’t know how to get there.  Then, another time when I was driving from Guatemala to San Miguel de Allende, I got lost in Mexico City and a policeman on a motorbike literally guided me through town for a number of miles to get me to the freeway I needed.

  The Mexican people are warm and wonderful, extraordinarily gracious and kind.  Drug dealers are thugs and murderers anywhere, and that includes the United States.  That there are drug dealers here doesn’t mean that you and I and most of us in the US are good people, and that goes for Mexico too.  Alas, most people just see headlines and stay away.

I have traveled all my life, mostly around Europe and Latin America.  I lived in Latin America for several years and in Spain and Italy for six years and I definitely agree with Thomas Jefferson!  I am never happy unless I’m traveling and long to go back to Spain and especially to Chile, where I lived for a year.  Maybe I’ll win the contest!

P. S.  Correction to the above!  I meant to say that the fact that there are drug dealers here doesn’t mean that you and I are NOT good people….

Excuse the typo.

Having lived in Mexico for 12 years, I feel a sense of loss not so much for me, but for Mexico. The cartels, fueled by their market in the United States, have subverted the structures of government, especially the police. Bad things happen. I wrote a piece last summer on a drive through the heart of Sonora, and two weeks later, over 14 people were killed in one day on that same road. But I refuse to give up traveling to Mexico, or to encourage other people to do so. Next week, I’m taking my family to Tijuana, and poke around the Tijuana-Ensenada corridor. I am going to be a tourist. We are going to eat fish tacos and play in the surf and buy straw hats and serapes, and ride bikes down the Malecon. Mexico is still there, and needs us more than ever.

I don’t think of it as being less happy, but perhaps being less sanguine about the rightness of human actions and our place in the world. Travel can be unsettling, but I think being shaken out of your comfort zone is a good thing overall.

I have lived in Mexico for six years and the news is bad.  The recent election of so many PRI candidates means more of the corrupt status quo.  The future for progress against criminality looks dim.  However, Mexico is a very beautiful and varied landscape.  The country, the land itself, is just part of the larger world. When I get overwhelmed by thoughts of what humans do, I take a few moments to imagine that the place where I am is in its natural state.  No people, no buildings, no cars, no pollution - none of the trappings of human habitation.  After a few minutes of this peaceful thought experiment, I am able to regain a larger perspective and love the country as what it is…a small part of a wondrous and beautiful planet that happens to be inhabited by a fallible and imperfect species.

Thoughtful piece Jim. I can relate to how travel does make one more aware of the suffering in places where one has felt “at home” due to travel. I see that as a good thing though and one of the great benefits of travel, helping us to get a deeper understanding that we are all one.

I must disagree with the illustrious Thomas Jefferson on this point though. Travel actually makes one happier and this is even more true today than ever as our world shrinks. I have read studies that show that money can not buy happiness, but money spent on *experiences* like travel DO make people happier.

I agree that happiness is a choice and is really not dependent on any outside circumstances. I tend to be a happy person no matter what, because it was a habit I dedicated myself to early on, but still we find ourselves even happier as we travel the world.

Travel keeps one in the “now” which is one of it’s greatest values. Or said MUCH better by Bill Bryson:

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”

I have found that a travel lifestyle keeps one continually in the moment like a child with the same kind of joy over the simple every day miracles of life. When living in this travel state, it is easy to stay out of one’s head and see beauty everywhere.

in my experience, travel definitely makes one happier and is part of what attracts people to travel.

Thank you Jim!
What for?  I’m so happy to read your positive article on the state of Michoacan, Mexico.
What is happening in Mexico now is truly tragic.  Tragic for the innocent people caught in the middle. And tragive for those who used to travel to Mexico by car and discover gems like the tiny village you wrote about.  I can only pray that the situation in Mexico improves, otherwise, we will all be deprived from Mexico’s enchanting beauty.

Both Jefferson and Benning are wise men. If you haven’t been to a place, its hard to get very worked up over a tiny story in the newspaper about calamaties befalling some far off place.  The American media provides us with increasingly rare and shallow coverage of international events, so its up to us to get out and see the world.

For me, there is always a degree of melancholy in recalling past trips- both because that time in your life will never come back and because the place wouldn’t be the same if you returned.  Nonetheless, that sadness can’t compare to how bad I feel if I don’t have a “next trip” to plan.  If i’m not “going anywhere”, staying put becomes unbearable.

I think recalling past adventures is wonderful….but revisiting the same places can be disappointing if not crushing.  I lived in Mexico City as a teenager, forty years ago, and have returned numerous times, traveling all over Mexico, alone, in my car, with no trouble whatsoever.  In 1998 I drove from Antigua, Guatemala, where I was living, back to Texas, again, with no trouble whatsoever.  I speak fluent Spanish, but still, I probably wouldn’t do that today.  Besides, a great deal of the charm and beauty that was Mexico has been lost.  Everything changes.

Finding the next “Mexico,”  a place that was like Mexico in the fifties, Paris in the twenties, Taos in the teens and twenties, Spain in the forties and fifties, Kenya in the teens and twenties….that is my goal.  Those were the romantic places.  I wonder if there is one left.  I think there may be too many people now.  I tried Antigua, in Guatemala, which comes close, but no cigar.  I may try the wine country of Argentina next….or Barriloche.  Maybe the Travel Channel will find it!