To read is to travel in the same way that travelling is similar to reading.

When you read, you discover new worlds and unchartered territories.

You travel using your mind’s eye, seeing things in the forms and shapes designed by your imagination. Picking up a book is not so much about learning how the story ends, but about being along for the ride. 

The Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō mastered the art of combining travelling and writing. In Backroads To Far Towns: Bashō’s Travel Journal, he chronicled the trips he took in Japan in 1689 (though the book wasn’t published until 1704). It is written as literary prose and contains many rich descriptions and outlines of Japanese nature.

For those versed in Japanese literary history, there are numerous references also to older Japanese writers and poets, and so the book is also a door to the country’s cultural past. 

Bashō was interested in capturing the inner beauty of what is simple, natural and quiet, generally known as “sabi”, but this term can also apply to a certain kind of melancholy, expressing an emotional view of things.

Another important term in Japanese poetry is “shiori”, which refers to how the ephemerality of all things living appear through the poet’s gaze.

To write travel journals was an old Japanese tradition, and in this way, the writings of Bashō builds on previous works by those who came before him, but read by the generations that came after. 

When arriving in a new place, it might take some time to find one’s footing. Everything is both unknown – in the sense that all places are visited for the first time – and familiar, because regardless of geography, the basics human needs are the same, all over the world.

And every time we venture out into the unknown, we further our knowledge and our understanding of the world expands. 

Are we the same person after we have finished reading a book? It might depend on the level of our engagement. Some books we read for distraction, and those are forgotten the moment we put them down.

But if we have gained profound insights, or had an overwhelming emotional experience through the story, something within us might have changed or our minds have shifted.

Are we always different after a journey to somewhere? Not necessarily, but with travel comes experience, and experience is more or less just another word for knowledge. So, by travelling (and reading) we have the potential to grow richer and to have our mind’s landscape is nourished, but for this to happen we have to remain open to new impressions, encounters and ideas.

A good idea is to as Bashō did during his journeys – takes notes on what you do, of whom you meet and where you go.

After some time, you will begin to see a shift in your perspective, a new vocabulary (or even a new language) being developed, and a new way of seeing evolving as you look at the world around you, and within you.