CAN YOU TRAVEL TOO MUCH? 

A week ago, I was walking along a small road on Mykonos, on my way to a beach I wanted to explore, and where the water seemed even more crystal-blue than in other bays on the island. 

Three days ago, I was at home in Stockholm, walking my dog in the forest behind our building. Today, I woke up in Florence, to cover the menswear fashion fair Pitti Uomo. 

And in a few weeks, I will be visiting Naples before continuing to Calabria. 

Like many others whose work life is similar to mine, my life is defined by travels. I enjoy seeing the world and feeling at home in many different places. 

But I have also come to wonder, how does all this travelling affect my sense of self and connection to the world? 

We are what we do. Up until recently, this “doing” often took place in a limited geographical area. Many didn’t leave their village more than a few times during an entire lifetime. Today, the world is accessible in a completely new way. People don’t only travel between countries but between continents as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. For a long time, until the COVID-10 pandemic, this was also viewed as enviable. But as people switched to having meetings on zoom instead of travelling halfway across the world, a newfound appreciation for being at home began to develop. 

In an ideal world, you love the place where you live. You feel connected not only to the place but to the people that live there with you. You know the people at your local bakery, chitchat with the staff at the supermarket, and stop to gossip with the florist. You are recognized as being part of the community. Extensive travelling will distrust these connections, make your habits irregular and distance you from the place where you have your home. 

Fashion photographer Steven Meisel is today so sought after that he doesn’t have to travel for work anymore. He only works from his studio, in the same New York City-neighbourhood as his home. 

Travelling, he feels, takes too much of a toll these days, and he prefers to stay put and he likes his daily routines. 

For every assignment, he will work with the same team – assistants, makeup-designer, hair stylist, etc. – and by now, they know each so well that that they know what he wants, even when he is not on site. 

The team will fly anywhere in the world, to places like Venice, the Maldives, or Los Angeles, and he will join via link, giving instructions from the comfort of his home. 

In this way, he is emblematic of the trend of wanting to travel less and instead enjoying being a true local. 

Travelling expands your mind but it comes at a cost. The cost is your sense of community. Of course, you still belong – you have acquaintances in Biarritz and can easily find people to have dinner with a Friday night in London, but you are not being present in your own neighbourhood. 

I think about this in the hours between breakfast and the first fashion presentation of the day. In a parallel life, I could have been walking my dog, or having lunch at my usual ramen spot, a hole-in-the-wall about twenty minutes from my flat. 

The environmental aspects aside, travelling also has existential effects, taking a toll on who you would be if you weren’t always planning your next trip to go somewhere else, anywhere but here. Perhaps we all need to take notes from Mr. Meisel. 

Dr. Philip Warkander