The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It's a

Hear, O traveler of both earth and spirit, the fiery words of Paul Theroux, master of the journey and chronicler of distant lands: “The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It’s a passion. And I can’t understand people who don’t want to travel.” In this declaration, he speaks not merely of moving across maps, but of the inner compulsion that drives humanity to seek beyond the horizon. For travel, he says, is not a luxury nor a diversion, but a deep fire within—the union of body and mind in search of the unknown.

At the heart of his saying lies the truth that travel is curiosity embodied. The mind hungers to know what lies beyond familiar walls; the body yearns to set foot upon new soil. It is not enough to imagine or to read of distant lands—the soul demands to see, to taste, to touch, to hear with its own senses. This is the travel impulse: an insatiable desire to stretch one’s boundaries, to dissolve the walls of habit, and to awaken the dormant wonder within. Without such curiosity, the spirit risks growing stagnant, like water that does not flow.

Theroux calls this impulse a passion—and rightly so. For passion is not mild; it consumes, it drives, it transforms. Passion for travel is the burning that will not let one remain still, that whispers in the ear at dawn: Go. See. Discover. It is the same force that propelled the Phoenicians across the Mediterranean, the Chinese along the Silk Road, the Vikings across unknown seas. Their journeys were not mere quests for trade or conquest—they were fueled by a passion for what lay beyond. In them we see the same restless energy that Theroux describes, the flame that has lit every age of exploration.

Consider the life of Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveler of the 14th century, who set out at the age of twenty-one and did not return home for nearly thirty years. He crossed deserts, oceans, mountains, and empires, driven not by necessity but by curiosity and passion. His journeys spanned over seventy thousand miles, and his chronicles remain among the greatest treasures of world history. He is living proof of Theroux’s words: that travel is not only a desire but a compulsion, a fire that burns until it is satisfied—and perhaps, never truly satisfied.

There is also a challenge hidden in Theroux’s words: “I can’t understand people who don’t want to travel.” It is as if he is lamenting those who live without this impulse, those who remain rooted in the soil of habit, fearing the discomfort of the unknown. To him, such lives are impoverished, not because they lack possessions, but because they lack encounters—with other people, other cultures, other landscapes that reflect back to us who we truly are. For to refuse travel is not simply to stay in place, but to risk never knowing the vastness of the world or the vastness of oneself.

Yet we must also hear his words as a call to awaken. The travel impulse lies within all, though in some it sleeps. To stir it is to take even small steps: to explore one’s own city, to speak with strangers, to open the heart to difference. Not all will journey across oceans, but all can cultivate the spirit of travel—the union of curiosity and courage, the willingness to step beyond what is known.

The lesson, then, is this: nurture your curiosity until it becomes passion, and let that passion move your body into the world. Do not wait until life forces you to change—seek the new willingly. In practice, set aside fear, take journeys both near and far, and let every step teach you. Read the signs of foreign tongues, taste food you do not know, listen to stories from lands beyond your own. For as Theroux teaches, the one who travels is alive twice: once in their homeland, and once in the infinite lands of others.

Thus, let his words burn in you like a torch: the world is vast, and you are small, but within you is the impulse to bridge that gap. Honor it. Pursue it. For curiosity, passion, and travel are the eternal companions of the soul that refuses to wither, the soul that longs to live fully, in every land beneath the sun.