Blue Highways

We've talked a lot not just about travel, but about why people travel. What sparks it? What do they hope to get out of it? At the beginning of his memoir, William Least Heat-Moon explains why he is drawn to the road: "I took to the open road in search of places where change did not mean ruin and where time and men and deeds connected." In part, he seems to be running away from something--namely, the "desperate sense of isolation" he experienced at home, which felt like "an alien land." However, his explanation is interesting because he is also running to something--where time and men and deeds connected. He's looking for more meaning. A search for purpose and meaning is one we've seen in many of our books and movies; travel seems to be a way to find greater meeting for many people. Sometimes this search is portrayed more as a restlessness, and the only solution is going somewhere else. Heat-Moon's explanation seems less like this, in part because he sees the beauty in returning home and in creating a full circle with his trip. He just hopes that, somewhere along the way, he finds a place where things are different. I find this to be an important part of travel--it's not always about escaping; sometimes it's about different experiences and the things you learn from them, which I think Heat-Moon would agree with. At the end of the memoir, he writes, "If the circle had come full turn, I hadn't. I can't say, over the miles, that I learned what I had wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. But I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know."