Travel is the movement of people or objects (such as airplanes, boats, trains and other conveyances) between relatively distant geographical locations.
Etymology
The term "travel" originates from the Old French word travail. The term also covers all the activities performed during a travel (movement). A person who travels is spelled "traveler" in the United States, and "traveller" in the United Kingdom.
Purpose and motivation
"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
Saint AugustineReasons for traveling include recreation, tourism or vacationing, research travel for the gathering of information, for holiday to visit people, volunteer travel for charity, migration to begin life somewhere else, religious pilgrimages and mission trips, business travel, trade, commuting, and other reasons, such as to obtain health care or fleeing war or for the enjoyment of traveling. Travel may occur by human-powered transport such as walking or bicycling, or with vehicles, such as public transport, automobiles, trains and airplanes.
Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.
— Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Motives to travel include pleasure, relaxation, discovery and exploration, getting to know other cultures and taking personal time for building interpersonal relationships. Travel may be local, regional, national (domestic) or international. In some countries, non-local internal travel may require an internal passport, while international travel typically requires a passport and visa. A trip may also be part of a round trip, which is a particular type of travel whereby a person moves from their usual residence to one or several locations and returns.
Travel safety
See also: Air safety and Automobile safetyIt's important to take precautions to ensure travel safety. When traveling abroad, the odds favor a safe and incident-free trip, however, travelers can be subject to difficulties, crime and violence. Some safety considerations include being aware of one's surroundings, avoiding being the target of a crime, leaving copies of one's passport and itinerary information with trusted people, obtaining medical insurance valid in the country being visited and registering with one's national embassy when arriving in a foreign country. Many countries do not recognize drivers' licenses from other countries; however most countries accept international driving permits. Automobile insurance policies issued in one's own country are often invalid in foreign countries, and it's often a requirement to obtain temporary auto insurance valid in the country being visited. It's also advisable become oriented with the driving rules and regulations of destination countries. Wearing a seat belt is highly advisable for safety reasons and because many countries have penalties for violating seatbelt laws.
Vices may be said to await us along the course of our lives like hosts with whom we lodge successively on a journey; and I doubt that experience would cause us to avoid them, if we could travel the same road twice.
— François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
There are three main statistics which may be used to compare the safety of various forms of travel (based on a DETR survey in October 2000):
|
|
|