What it means to be a good traveler

I stumbled across Eryn Gordon’s TEDx talk on a quiet afternoon and couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward. Not because it confirmed something I already believed, but because it didn’t. She made me reconsider something I thought I understood — travel — and that’s rarer than it sounds.

We don’t do enough of that. We don’t pause long enough to ask whether the things we love might also be causing harm, or whether loving something means we have a responsibility to it. Eryn does ask that. I think more of us should.

I reached out, and she was kind enough to share this essay. I hope it stays with you the way her talk stayed with me.