The Daily Transit
Many passionate travellers remember their first time on the road with fondness.
Whether it’s the immersion in a foreign culture or language, the chance to step out on your own, or simply the enlightenment that comes with experiencing a place you’re unfamiliar with, that first trip is a profound moment in the lives of travellers.
For Ben Hancock, that first trip came a few years ago, when he headed off to Seoul, South Korea, to study for a year. This initial plunge was enough to inspire him with a deep passion for travelling. Whether he’s on the road or not, he uses his blog, The Daily Transit, to share his reflection, essays, poetry and narratives on daily journeys.
Recently, he did a bike trip around the west coast of the USA with a friend, a journey he called Tour de Cascadia. TravelBlogs caught up with him to find out more about Cascadia, Korea, and life in general.
What inspired the idea of doing a road and bike trip around the West Coast?
After coming back from Korea in 2005 I realized how funny it was that I’d done all this traveling in Asia but never taken the classic American journey – a road trip. Even though I grew up in the Northwest I’d never really explored my own backyard, so to speak, so going down to Oregon and Northern California seemed like the natural thing to do. I graduated this past August so that presented a window of time to finally make it happen.
Most of us, in living our daily routines, create a comfortable box to live in
As far as why we brought the bikes, in the past few years cycling has become a huge part of my life – both Seattle and Madison, where I live now, have huge bike communities that have fostered my passion for riding. I genuinely feel that the best way to see a city is from the seat of a bicycle; dealing with parking and traffic in a car makes exploring a stressful experience.
For the uninitiated, could you explain the term “Cascadia”?
Cascadia is a term my friends and I use – and I’m sure other people use it too – to talk about the region west of the Cascade mountain range. The range generally divides the liberal parts of Washington and Oregon from their conservative, eastern counterparts. I don’t think that the Cascades actually stretch all the way down to Santa Cruz, but I include Northern California in the term “Cascadia” because I feel like the area has a vibe similar to that of the Pacific Northwest.
A quote from a recent entry you posted about Tour de Cascadia really struck me: “Sipping coffee out on the sidewalk and full of that desired onion bagel, Nick and I discuss how genuinely happy we are to be here; here, where the weeks don’t fly like days. The monotony is broken, an escape made, life feeling adventurous as we savor late summer.”
You really capture this idea of travelling in order to disrupt life’s routine - travel as a means of escape. Is the desire to “escape” the main thing that appeals to you about travel?
That’s definitely a huge part. Most of us, in living our daily routines, create a comfortable box to live in – everything that fits within the frame of our normal lives is familiar and rarely challenges our perceptions of others or ourselves. When I’m going through my weekday motions time seems to absolutely fly because I’m not really noticing what’s around me.
I remember sitting at O’hare airport one time last year waiting for a flight to New York and feeling like I was truly awake for the first time in a month (since my previous trip) because I had escaped from that comfortable space. While it may sound trite, traveling really makes me feel alive because I become so aware of my surroundings and my thoughts – things that get often get lost in the monotony. Another part of it is that travel helps me bring that mentality, that sense of wonder, back into my everyday life.
You didn’t really start travelling until your second year of college, when you moved to South Korea for a year and were “struck with wanderlust”, as you put it. What was it about going to Korea that birthed your love for travel?
Taking that first flight to Korea was one of the most defining moments in my life – prior to it I’d never left the country (excepting Canada and Mexican border towns), and had never struck out on a journey that would keep me so far from home for so long. Even though I’d been studying Korean language and had been exposed to the culture through friends in my hometown, everything was so different. The sense of freedom and fascination I felt was immense, and I absolutely fell in love with the culture and the people. Obviously the more I traveled, the more people I encountered, and the more I was exposed to mind-expanding experiences.
I grew so much while I was in Korea, and really made Seoul my home. I think what continues to draw me to travel, in addition to that feeling of escape, is the way it allows you to go to a place that is completely foreign and slowly accumulate memories there – streets that once blurred together suddenly have feeling and emotion irrevocably tied to them. That’s also why I think it’s essential to take your time while you travel.
It’s pretty clear from your writing that Korea still holds a special place in your heart - you call it one of your homes. Do you plan to move back there one day?
Absolutely. I plan to move back to Korea in the very near future.
You work as a freelance journalist and you love travel… The phrase “travel writer” comes to mind. Is that a dream job you’d like to have?
That’s something I’ve thought a lot about – I really respect and admire writers like Rolf Potts, Pico Iyer and Simon Winchester. Their style of writing simultaneously captures both the atmosphere of a place and what travel is all about, and I would love to be able to do the kind of work they do some day. But I’m honestly more drawn to journalism because I see it as both an art and a service – reporters tell stories that enrich people and make them aware of their world so they can make informed decisions. I think my dream is really to follow in the path of journalists like Howard French and Norimitsu Onishi, both of whom write for The New York Times about East Asia and tend to write stories through a very human lens.
Read more of Ben’s writing on his blog, The Daily Transit.
Posted by Eric Daams on October 16th, 2007 in Interviews.
