Today’s Monday Travel Motivation is also our ode to the Red Viper, and a sad cry for Game of Thrones of seasons past. (Plus, maybe it will hold us over until the next season starts.)
“It is a big and beautiful world. Most of us live and die in the same corner where we were born and never get to see any of it. I don’t want to be most of us.”
Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell, played by Pedro Pascal.
Oberyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, the Red Viper, and gent who knows how to wear a robe. Sharp of wit and tongue…but maybe a bit too vengeful for his own good. There’s a lesson for us in his life and death, as well as his lines in Game of Thrones.
Not everyone has that undeniable urge to travel. Hostelworld* found that the average American traveler has been to just three nations, with Canada and Mexico being the top two. Nearly one-third of Americans have never been abroad. By comparison, the average resident of the United Kingdom has visited 10 countries! Germans average eight nations each, and five for the French. (To be fair, the United States is huge, and traveling through a few states can be the geographic equivalent of visiting several European nations.)
The good news is that international travel continues to increase, year after year. That’s important not just because we want to see more than the little corner of the world where we were born, but because that’s the only way we will meet new friends in distant lands, and discover that, as Maya Angelou said, “we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
*The Hostelworld Global Traveler Report surveyed 7,000 travelers in 2015.
The Red Viper is right, travel is so important for making the most of our time on this planet. You only live once.
Hi Nell & Pigeons! We were so sad to see the Red Viper go! We know better than to like any character in Game of Thrones…that’s like a death warrant! But we digress. Thanks for visiting our blog, and you’re right – we need to make the most of our time! As the Red Viper found out, it can end most unexpectedly. 🙁