Wander Farther: Travel Inspiration From Films, Books, and Art
There are many ways to travel. You can buy a ticket and take a plane or a train, or simply drive a car down an open road. But travel also happens in quieter ways.
We revisit places through memory, returning to moments, landscapes, and people we have loved and never forgotten. Sometimes travel is sitting on the sofa, watching a film, and following someone else’s journey to a far-away place. Even then, we are still moving, carried by imagination, memory, and story. One day you’re walking down a street, you turn the corner, and you’ve time-traveled 300 years.
Another way to travel is by going to the movies. Two films that immediately come to mind that demonstrate what can happen when we step into the unknown are Under the Tuscan Sun and The Darjeeling Limited. In the first film, our heroine Frances Mayers (played by Diane Lane), in an attempt to escape an unhappy life, travels to Italy and embraces the Italian life and culture, through which see finds new happiness. In The Darjeeling Limited, estranged brothers travel to India and find their mother in a Himalayan convent. Though a series of adventures, they explore new places, new ideas, and find themselves in a new covenant of brotherhood.
These stories are all too similar. I found myself wrapped in my own sad narrative a few years back, after the loss of good friend, I took a trip down Mexico way and after some ambling around, I found myself in the middle of the Mercado de Artesanías La Ciudadela. It was busy and noisy with thousands of hand-made creations around me. In the colourful cacophony I found a silence and could hear my own heart beating and it is there that these hearts found me.
Once I saw them, I started to see them everywhere. These hand-painted tin hearts with vibrant colours and symbolic details lit the way to my newest adventure. These hearts became the spark for the heart themed line of high top sneakers. I offer them up for anyone travelling or on a new adventiure who wants to walk with a little love in thier life.
When not travelling, we can always learn about new places from reading a good book. Travel-themed books also keep our curiosity alive. They feed imagination, memory, and hope, especially during times of limitation or stillness. Reading about travel can reconnect us with places we have loved, introduce us to places we dream of visiting, and help us see our own lives from a wider perspective. Even when our bodies stay still, our minds continue to explore, and that sense of movement is deeply sustaining.
The book Paris Was Yesterday 1925 - 1939 published 1927, opens with Janet Flanner’s reflections on Paris in the 1920s, a city recovering from the devastation of World War I, but still brimming with energy and optimism.
And if you don’t have a good travel book to read, I have a little treat for you. Here is the second in my travel poster series. This is Santa Mariadel Fiore Cathedral in Florence, Italy. Built in 1296, the cathedral is the architectural heart of Florence and a symbol of Renaissance ambition. Its vast terracotta dome, engineered by Brunelleschi without scaffolding, redefined what was thought possible. Download it below for FREE and put it on your wall, or order your full-sized limited edition print today.
Until next time amigos, keep moving.
Hasta luego,
The Courage Drifter