Why We Travel: Happiness, curiosity, wonder, sex, healing, and other motivations for hitting the road

"No one motivation is ‘better’ than any other. We travel with different motivations at different times, and they sometimes overlap." –Ash Bhardwaj In this episode of Deviate , Rolf and Ash talk about curiosity as a motivation for travel (1:30); the ancient Greek concepts of happiness that underpin human motivations like travel, and how mentors influence travel (14:00); serendipity as a motivation for travel, Type One versus Type Two fun, and the dangers of "voluntourism" (21:00); how "awe" differs from "wonder," how to bring these perspectives home, and how "eroticism" can be a part of travel (36:30); "grief travel," and how one's sense for travel can become intertwined with a sense of hope (48:30). Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, and the author of Why We Travel . Notable Links: Paris travel memoir workshop, with Rolf Potts (creative writing class) Banana Pancake Trail (backpacker route in Southeast Asia) Hedonism (philosophical concept involving pleasure) Eudaimonia (philosophical concept involving happiness) A Moveable Feast (posthumous memoir by Ernest Hemingway ) Georges Perec (French novelist) Beginner's Mind (Zen Buddhist concept) Levison Wood (British explorer) Arsenal F.C. (English soccer team) Joseph Kony (Ugandan warlord) Flow (focused mental state) Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Hungarian-American psychologist) NGO (non-governmental aid organizations) Air Vanuatu (national airline in the South Pacific) Hokitika (town in New Zealand) Pounamu (stone valued by the Māori ) The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lu mber . Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

You can listen to Why We Travel: Happiness, curiosity, wonder, sex, healing, and other motivations for hitting the road online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Why We Travel: Happiness, curiosity, wonder, sex, healing, and other motivations for hitting the road is an episode from Deviate with Rolf Potts by Rolf Potts.

This episode is 00:54:47 long.

This episode was published on Jul 1, 2025.

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