Just today I was arguing with a friend of mine about what’s the best way to travel when you’re trying to get somewhere. Argument that we had was of the efficiency vs. adventure variety, I guess. My friend Tom claimed that the best way to reach your destination when traveling in a foreign country is by taking the main roads. I obviously have a slightly different opinion on that. Let’s find out what it is exactly.
Importance of taking the backroads when traveling
The whole point that I was making can be summed up pretty good with those inspirational quotes that talk about how in life if you want to stand out you have to take the road less traveled, or make a new path, or something like that. If you are traveling for the sake of travel, to get from point A to point B, you should of course stick to what Tom was suggesting, main road, the quickest way to get to your destination. But if you are traveling for the sake of adventure, it’s a whole another story.
Adventure requires you to take the road that’s going to take you the long way round. That’s going to get you see the sights, experience the local culture, people. You can’t do that if you stick to the expressway, and just zoom past everything going over 100 km/h. Now of course you won’t be as efficient, you’ll lose more gas, more time, but you’ll get more adventure under your belt, which I think is the whole point of travel. The only time when I wouldn’t recommend people to “take the backroads” is if you are in a sketchy country (we all know which those are) and if you are new to traveling and you don’t have a lot of experience. What do you think, do you agree with Tom or me?