Final Blogpost, Philosophy of Happiness, PHIL 3160, MTSU

Gary Wedgewood, November 2021

Montaigne traveled determined to:

1. Satisfy his intellectual curiosity

2. Walk where his heroes once walked

3. Sharpen his thinking by interacting with new people

4. Seek a cure for his painful kidney stone attacks (bathing in hot springs seemed to help)

Furthermore, he was determined to:

5. Avoid repeating a route, freely explore off the beaten path, and witness odd events

6. Enjoy the local cuisine and gather recipes

7. Shake off prejudices about other cultures

Montaigne gathered together a large entourage of servants, friends, and other curious people and traveled around Europe from the summer 1580 until November 1581 (for 17 months).  The travel itself was demanding, dangerous, and difficult (an “extreme sport”).  Diseases were causing plague conditions in some places. The roads were rough and travelers were preyed upon by robbers. Various travel documents were necessary depending on the region. At times they had to prove that they had not been exposed to the plague and officials often demanded bribes to get all of the bureaucratic paperwork done. What Montaigne loved most in his travels was when he could just go with “the flow” seeking out whatever pleasures enticed him, relaxing and observing his surroundings, and “seeing everything afresh and with full attention, like a child.” (Bakewell, p. 231)

To be a happy traveler you need to acquire a certain skill set and you need to be resilient, flexible, prepared, and resourceful. As Montaigne enjoyed having objects around his study to stimulate his thinking, I find that the mementoes I have brought back from my travels can bring back happy memories of those trips. Also, foods I encountered while traveling have become part of my diet like mango, pomegranates, figs, dates, and Mediterranean olives.

My experiences with travel began when I was in college and joined a tour of England lead by the Dean at my college who traveled every summer to Oxford where he studied and wrote.  During this trip I discovered my heritage at the Wedgwood museum which features this statue of master potter Josiah Wedgwood holding one of his vases.

After this trip I became curious about my ancestors and began doing genealogical research into my family tree by searching the internet, by interviewing older family members, and by collecting family photos, letters, and keep sakes.  On a later trip to England, I was able to do some research at the Wedgwood (In England they leave the second ‘e’ out of the name) museum with the enthusiastic help of the museum’s curator.  He took one look at me and said he could see the Wedgwood traits in my facial features.  He then proceeded to give us a personally guided grand tour of the museum and its archives of documents and books.

In my 20’s I began hiking and canoeing in wilderness areas from Tennessee to Canada.  These encounters with nature had a great impact on me, especially my experiences in the Canadian wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park (which sadly was closed this season due to climate change and the resulting wild fires in the park) and in the vast wilds of the South Cumberland Recreation Area which contains a restricted area of Virgin forest (a very rare occurrence East of the Mississippi river). 

Before my children were born I ventured with my wife to Israel with no itinerary or reservations.  We landed in Tel Aviv, rented a Fiat, and drove up to Jerusalem.  On the way we encountered burned out military equipment from recent wars.  We arrived in Jerusalem in the middle of the night, jet lagged by 12 hours to it felt like the middle of the day to us.  We walked the dark streets of Jerusalem looking for something to eat in a way we would not dare to do today.  We stayed at the Jerusalem YMCA, youth hostels, and camp grounds.  While we were camping at the Pools of Solomon campground, our tent was knocked down onto us during the night.  Palestinian youth were celebrating a holiday with a bonfire and began climbing the fence around the campground, throwing picnic tables into the pools, and at some point, knocked down the tent we were sleeping in.  They did not try to harm us but, we were having other problems.  My wife began having an attack of appendicitis during the night.  I went looking for the camp director who greeted me with an M-16 at his front door.  He did not understand English so I was only able to show him that our tent had been knocked down.  He put us in a cabin realizing that we might be in danger but never understood that my wife was feeling ill.  I was unable to explain to him that I needed our passports back so we could drive our rental car to a hospital.  The next morning, we drove off without our passports to find medical care and my wife ended up having surgery to remove her appendix. Fortunately, a nurse at the hospital who had immigrated from New Jersey took an interest in our situation and I ended up staying with her and her mother who had immigrated from Germany at the Kibbutz Biet Hashita that week until my wife got out of the hospital and could travel again.  Only later did we learn that Israeli officials had been watching over our situation with concern that an international incident might have resulted.

When my children were young we took camping trips to our national.  Every American should spend weeks at a time in our magnificent National Parks.

In 2007 after our children were grown, my wife and I decided we wanted to travel internationally with friends while we were still physically able.  Thailand was our first destination. 

In northern Thailand where elephants once were used for logging operations, we road an elephant.  Notice in the second picture our guide sitting on the head of the elephant with is “Sexy” knit cap and talking on his cell phone in the middle of the jungle.

Then, we went to Peru. We visited the Inca site “Machu Pichhu” and cruised the Amazon river where we frequently stopping at villages and explored the jungle along the way.

At Machu Pichhu our guide was able to arrange for us to spend most of a wonderful sunny day at the site when most groups were allowed far less time to tour.  Today, there are only limited reservations allowed for visitors to the site.  In this high altitude setting the Inca people escaped the Spanish invaders and worshipped the sun god.

On our five-day cruise of the Amazon river we were on a ship built as a replica of the ships which historically cruised the Amazon.  Notice the dragon head on the front of the boat.  We stopped at several villages along the way, danced with the villagers, toured a school and shared school supplies we had brought with the children, were invited into the home (built on stilts near the river) of the naturalist on our crew, went on jungle treks with the naturalist gleefully showed us frogs whose blood was the poison used on the tips of blow darts, took several excursions by smaller boats up some of the tributaries of the amazon to view the wildlife and see how people lived by fishing and farming, and we were able to go fishing for the much-feared piranha fish. The naturalist showed me where a piranha had taken a chunk out of his leg when he was younger.  Our catch was cooked up by the kitchen crew for our dinner that day.

In Turkey we walked where Paul had walked and visited the Asclepeion, one of the earliest hospitals for physical and mental illnesses. 

The first picture below is of the main street and entrance into Laodicea which is mentioned in the biblical book of Colossians. We could see the grooves in this Roman street caused by carts coming a going over the years.  The Apostle Paul would have entered this, the “lukewarm” city, at this gate and walked on this street.

The second picture is taken at the Asclepeion which featured mud baths, isolation treatments where dreaming was supposed to be a cure, and one treatment which utilized the tunnel pictured here.  Patients traversed the tunnel while snakes were dropped on them from above (to scare the disease out of them, I suppose).

We went to Jordon and Israel on an educational tour where we visited Golgotha (the place of the Skull where Jesus was said to have been crucified), and the sea of Galilee where the “Jesus boat” was on display.

At Golgotha, on the right of the cliff face you could make out eyes and a nose of a skull which is much more distinct in photos from the long ago.  Some of the rock has evidently broken off since the time of Jesus.

At the Sea of Galilee we saw what is referred to as the “Jesus boat”.  Though it is very unlikely that Jesus road in this particular 25-foot-long boat, it is a boat from the time of Jesus which was found preserved in the mud of the Sea of Galilee when the water levels got very low one year.  We met a man who helped devise a method using injectable Styrofoam by which the remains of the boat were lifted out of the mud and preserved in this climate-controlled room.

Before the pandemic we made it to Kenya and Tanzania in Africa.

Although we spent many nights in tents on the Serengeti plains in Tanzania, occasionally we stayed in luxurious hotels.  The room we stayed in the night before this first picture was taken was the fanciest and featured an outdoor and indoor shower as well as a bathtub.  As we were leaving the next morning we observed young people hauling the daily water supply for their family from a water tower in the nearby town.  While we had running water, that had to make water runs.

We also visited a Masai village where the tribe received us with singing and dancing and gave us a tour of one of their homes.  The homes were arranged in a circle around the open area in the picture.  They would bring their cattle herds inside the circle at night to protect them from predators.  They lived in houses entirely constructed with cow manure which dries like cement and is plastered on a woven frame of tree limbs. The young men jumping in the picture are leaping to impress the young women.  They shared a number of demonstrations related to their way of life including starting a fire with dried cow dung using sticks to create friction-heat and fire.

Gary’s Philosophy of Travel and Happiness

(Like Montaigne, my travels have had a big impact on my life and led to me developing my own philosophy of travel and happiness.)

•      Start traveling while you are young

•      Travel is a mind-expanding experience and an open mind is more prone to expansion

•      Both free-wheeling travel and educational touring are of value

•      Walk in the footsteps of your heroes (Jesus and Paul in my case)

•      Meet the local people on their turf and on their terms

•      Go to the hot springs just for pleasure

•      Wander off the beaten path and be a sensible risk taker

•      Eat local foods fully cooked, hot, or after peeling and use only bottled water (travel meds like Cipro are essential)

Quotable Quotes for your Edification:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

 “Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind, and fills your life with stories to tell.”

― Paula Bendfeldt

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

― St. Augustine

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
― Anita Desai
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
“Travel brings power and love back into your life.”
― Rumi Jalalud-Din
 “I read; I travel; I become”
― Derek Walcott
“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
― Henry Miller

“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
“Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.”
― Ma Jian, Red Dust: A Path Through China

In conclusion, travel far and wide, meet interesting people, expand your mind, and be happy!