Travel, which was once either a necessity or an adventure, has

Hear now the voice of Jan Morris, whose words pierce through the fog of modern illusion: “Travel, which was once either a necessity or an adventure, has become very largely a commodity, and from all sides we are persuaded into thinking that it is a social requirement, too.” This saying is not idle observation, but lament and warning alike. For it reveals how something that once shaped civilizations and tested the human spirit has been dulled into a product to be consumed, advertised, and paraded as status.

In the ancient days, travel was never frivolous. It was necessity: merchants crossing deserts with silks and spices, envoys braving stormy seas to forge alliances, pilgrims journeying to holy shrines in search of grace. Or it was adventure: Odysseus setting forth across unknown waters, Marco Polo following the road into the mysteries of Cathay, Magellan sailing beyond the world’s edge. To travel was to risk, to discover, to transform. Every step carried weight, every mile demanded courage.

But now, Morris declares, travel has been reduced to a commodity—bought and sold like trinkets in a market. It is packaged, polished, and sold as experience itself. Instead of journeys of necessity or trials of adventure, we are offered brochures, loyalty points, and carefully curated itineraries. The traveler is no longer a pilgrim or an explorer but a consumer, urged to collect destinations as one might collect ornaments. And worse, society whispers that to abstain from such travel is to be incomplete, that it is a requirement of a life well lived.

Consider the voyages of Ibn Battuta, who in the 14th century wandered seventy-five thousand miles across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He traveled not for vanity but for devotion, knowledge, and survival. His journeys left behind chronicles that enriched the world’s understanding of itself. Compare this with the modern pursuit of snapping a photograph in a famous square only to prove one’s presence. Here lies Morris’s truth: that travel emptied of purpose becomes but spectacle, its soul traded for vanity.

Yet this is not to condemn all modern wandering. There remain those who step beyond the beaten path, who seek not merely the postcard but the encounter—the villager’s tale, the mountain’s silence, the ocean’s vastness. Such travel retains the ancient flame. The danger, Morris warns, is in surrendering wholly to the voices of commerce that tell us where we must go, what we must see, and how we must measure our worth by the places we have touched.

The lesson for us, then, is to reclaim travel from the merchants of vanity. Let it be again necessity—a journey toward understanding, toward communion with the world. Let it be again adventure—a trial of the spirit, a breaking of boundaries, a search for transformation. Reject the hollow promise that to journey is merely to purchase an experience. Instead, let your steps be guided by curiosity, reverence, and courage.

Practically, this means: do not travel simply because the world tells you it is fashionable. Travel when your heart calls for learning, when your spirit longs for testing, when your mind hungers for perspective. Seek not only the grand cities, but the quiet villages. Speak not only to guides, but to strangers. Let your measure of travel be not in miles or photos, but in the change wrought within you.

Therefore, O seekers of wisdom, let Morris’s words be a compass. Guard yourself from the marketplace that seeks to sell you wonder as though it were trinkets. Step onto the road with purpose, not vanity. For true travel is still the great teacher—it can still slay prejudice, kindle awe, and remind us of our smallness beneath the stars. But only if we reclaim it, not as commodity, nor as requirement, but as sacred journey.