Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the

Hear the solemn wisdom of Paul Theroux, who declared: “Travel works best when you’re forced to come to terms with the place you’re in.” This is no idle remark, but the utterance of one who has wandered far and endured the trials of foreign lands. His words remind us that true travel is not the polished fantasy of glossy pictures or guided tours, but the raw encounter with reality itself. It is when a traveler can no longer hide behind comfort or illusion, when he must face the strangeness, the hardship, the otherness of a land—that is when travel becomes transformation.

For many roam the earth with blinders upon their eyes. They carry their homeland with them, wrapped in hotels, in food that imitates home, in the illusion that they are untouched by the world around them. But this is not travel, it is escape in disguise. The true path of the traveler is to surrender, to allow the place itself to shape the heart. When Theroux speaks of being “forced to come to terms,” he speaks of the stripping away of false layers, until only the essence of the encounter remains. To know a place is not to glance at its monuments, but to wrestle with its spirit, to feel its rhythms, its challenges, its truths.

Consider the tale of Odysseus, the wanderer of ancient Greece. When he was stranded upon foreign shores, when storms hurled him into unknown lands, he was not free to choose the comfort of Ithaca. He was forced to face each land as it was: the island of the Cyclops, wild and cruel; the halls of Circe, seductive and dangerous; the kingdom of the Phaeacians, generous and kind. In every trial, he was shaped not by his will alone, but by the demands of the place itself. His journey endured not because he escaped reality, but because he surrendered to it, endured it, and learned from it. Such is the essence of Theroux’s wisdom.

So too in our own age, many who travel seek only the ease of comfort. Yet those who find themselves stranded by a missed train, lost in a city where no one speaks their tongue, or sitting humbly at a stranger’s table—these are the ones who taste the marrow of travel. In the moment of discomfort, when one is forced to adapt, to listen, to learn, the mask falls away, and the place becomes real. The land enters the soul, and the traveler emerges changed.

But mark this: the lesson of Theroux is not about suffering alone, but about openness. To come to terms with a place is to accept it as it is, without judgment, without the arrogant expectation that it should bend to our desires. It is the humility of saying: “This is not my world, yet I will walk in it with respect.” When we embrace this truth, every journey becomes a pilgrimage, and every hardship becomes a teacher.

Take heed, then, O seeker of wisdom: when you travel, do not cling to comfort. Allow yourself to be tested by the land. Eat the food that is offered, walk the roads as the locals do, endure the delays, the heat, the cold, the confusion. Speak with strangers, listen to stories, breathe the air of that soil until it changes you. For the world does not exist to amuse you; it exists to shape you, if you are willing to be shaped.

And when you return from your travels, the lesson will linger: you will be stronger, humbler, more compassionate. You will know that the essence of travel is not to carry the world on your terms, but to meet the world on its own. Thus shall Theroux’s words live within you: travel works best when you’re forced to come to terms with the place you’re in. This is the path not of the tourist, but of the true pilgrim of life.