Translator: Simi Kohad Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Lockdown, travel restrictions, social distancing, another lockdown
border closures, curfew, vaccination passport,
fifth wave.
I thought that it was the perfect time
to come and talk to you about travel.
Yes, yes, I assure you that it’s really the right time to talk about travel.
And on that note, I am going to ask you a question.
When I say the word travel, what are the first images
that come to your mind and where are these images take place?
Ok, so those who pictured themselves abroad
could you please raise your hand?
Ok, and now, those who pictured themselves in France,
could you raise your hand?
Ok, so, the majority of us associate travel with distance.
So, maybe you can’t take this Covid anymore,
maybe you dream of escaping and going far away.
Well, as a matter of fact, this afternoon we’re going to go far away.
And maybe you also, from tomorrow,
you will go far away, right next door to you,
because today I propose
that we modify our perception of travel
and even deconstruct our notion of travel.
My name is Nicolas and I grew up on the banks of the Loire,
1 of the world’s most beautiful rivers.
Actually, THE most beautiful river in the world.
My passion is traveling.
So, from the time I was 26 years old,
I started taking a plane to go far away.
And I am committed to ecology.
I deeply believe that we are doomed
if we don’t meet the challenge of ecology.
It’s a little contradictory,
particularly with regard to traveling abroad.
This contradiction has tormented me so much, that I made it my profession.
To combine my passion and my commitment,
I have been working for several years
as a co-leader of a publishing house
that offers travel guides committed to a sustainable approach to tourism.
A few years ago,
I couldn’t imagine the pleasure of traveling
unless I went abroad.
But unfortunately all this is not without consequence.
To preserve living conditions on Earth,
that is to say, to contain global warming
at 1.5 degrees by the end of the century,
each French person
must emit, by 2050,
less than 2 tons of CO2 per year,
based on the scenarios developed by the IPCC
And when I take a round trip flight from Paris to Bali,
I emit 5.5 tons of CO2 according to the calculations of
The GoodPlanet Foundation
So, by taking this plane to Bali,
I would emit almost three times the carbon footprint
that I should be consuming over an entire year.
More clearly,
from the moment that I set my foot on the plane,
all the ecological efforts I was able to make in the year go out the window.
That’s just how it is.
So I’m kind of having an internal conflict
between my desire to travel and my values,
which makes me feel a certain kind of guilt.
It’s called cognitive dissonance
and I call it the contradiction of the green traveler.
Maybe sometimes some of you also feel
this contradiction.
So, I had a simple realization.
international air travel must remain the exception.
And for several years, this realization made me sad.
It made me sad because
advertisements, airlines, social media
made us believe that it was easy to go far away.
They showed us that happiness is found on the other side of the world.
The 20 places you absolutely must visit in your life,
the 100 places to see before you die.
If you don’t want to have regrets, you absolutely must see
Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
the Angkor temples, all crammed together.
You have to have a bucket list, You always have to go further,
You always have to go faster.
We need to discover as many things as possible to not miss anything.
Nothing to regret.
To the extent that I had sometimes forgotten
to see the pleasure and the beauty next door.
And then everything changed when
I changed my perception of travel
and I even thought that we needed to redefine
the word travel.
The definition of the word travel, according to the Larousse dictionary,
is the action of going to a relatively distant or foreign place.
What if this distant place wasn’t a destination at all?
Why do we enjoy traveling so much?
What are we looking for in a distant journey?
We like to travel far for several reasons.
For example, we like to travel far to be amazed and to have a change of scenery.
What if we didn’t necessarily have to travel to a destination for that,
but rather to have an experience filled with sensations?
In March 2020, we were all confined.
And then, we thought, well, at home without being able to go out,
maybe it’ll be a little difficult to get away.
And then, the Bird Protection League
proposed that each and every one of us
count the birds in our gardens.
So for long hours, I was alert,
looking out for birds.
And I was surprised.
I found myself feeling the same sensations
as when I was halfway around the world
observing animals.
So yes, I didn’t see any toucans, but I felt infinite happiness
associated with being on watch, feeling uncertain
and getting excited when a rare bird appears.
And ultimately, that is the journey.
And so, we are lucky to be able to get away within our own country.
since France is not lacking in places to visit
In the mood for Colorado?
Here are the ocher hills of Rustrel, in Vaucluse.
Feel like going to the Sahara?
Here’s the Pilat Dune, in Gironde.
How about a temple in Cambodia?
Here’s le Palais idéal du facteur Cheval in Drôme.
How about Cappadocia, in Turkey?
Here’s the Orgues d’ille-sur-Têt in the eastern Pyrenees.
Want to see the grasslands in Mongolia?
Here’s Nino lake, in Haute-Corse.
Want to discover the most beautiful river in the world?
The Loire is not to be missed.
(Applaud)
And other times, we wish to travel far
to go encounter other cultures
and thereby have new experiences.
What if it wasn’t necessary to leave the country for that,
but rather to leave our comfort zone?
It’s true that in our country, it is sometimes more difficult
to find this cultural immersion that we can find abroad.
But we can find a diversity of people, of cultures
and of incredible lifestyles.
In France, I participated in Latin-American gatherings.
I met shamans.
I spent several days with people
who live self-sufficiently in eco-places.
I shared my daily life with nomads
and all these people with such different lifestyles
introduced me to new cultures
and new ways of approaching life,
all this in my own country.
And believe it or not, we could even meet these people at home.
Yes, by welcoming passing travelers.
At home, I shared my daily life with Iranians,
Lithuaniens, a Touareg from Nigeria...
And I can tell you that while staying on my own couch,
well, I have traveled very, very, very far.
Sometimes, we also wish to travel far
to go find ourselves because traveling is also discovering.
So maybe for some of you
this is the image that comes to mind when I talk about a journey of discovery.
Anyway, that’s the case for me,
so when I went to Asia,
I immediately went to a temple in Thailand and an ashram in India.
And then I realized that in France,
these ashrams and temples are actually everywhere.
We find them in each of our regions.
So last summer, I left to go stay in a country house in Ardèche
to practice dynamic meditation,
a specific meditation at the Osho ashram.
Well, it so happens that the teachers and the practices
were exactly the same as in India.
During these few days, I traveled in my inner world
and in the invisible world.
I traveled in my heart, I traveled in my body.
I traveled in connection with humanity.
And even with the entire universe.
Yes, I left, but so far away.
By the way, right now I’m traveling
through some of your thoughts.
And some of these thoughts are whispering to me:
“What is this guy talking about? He’s completely nuts!”
And I want to tell you that you should go nuts too.
Let yourself be carried away by these inner trips
and you’ll see that by going right here,
you’ll go so much further than in any country.
And so, sometimes, we wish to travel far,
simply to rest and to spend time with our loved ones.
In order to do this,
do we really need to go to an all inclusive hotel
in Tunisia to go and rest on a beach?
Is it really necessary to take a plane to access this happiness,
while in Brittany we have magnificent beaches to relax on?
And I assure you,
sometimes the weather is very, very beautiful in Brittany.
Well, maybe a little less than on the banks of the Loire, anyway.
And finally, maybe some of you like to travel far away
to have an adventure.
For me, adventure is something important.
I went to Nicaragua, my first long distance trip.
I dreamed of exploring unknown lands
and heading off to new adventures
and immersing myself in new cultures.
And finally my epic story would often came down to
sleeping in youth hostels in touristy towns
spending my time with other western travellers
and eating Hawaiian pizzas.
Which is not really the culinary specialty of Nicaragua.
And six year later, I went to the middle of the forest, without food.
I ate plants that I found in nature.
I learned to make a fire.
I even slept on the floor, on a carpet of dead leaves.
That was the adventure.
I traveled through time.
to the days of hunter-gatherers.
And guess what, I had this experience
in the Orleans forest, right next to my house,
during a Survival and Bushcraft workshop.
And then,
a little while later, I rode my bike to the Loire.
And on my bike, well, I got a taste of absolute freedom.
a profound freedom
that I had never felt before.
So yes, I am happy,
happy to be able to follow my passion, accessible right next door,
without needing a lot of time or money
and all while being in line with my ecological values.
And I want to share with you this afternoon, three ideas
to experience these pleasures of traveling close to home.
The first idea,
is of course to find the charm in proximity again
to deconstruct this all powerful myth
telling us that travel and adventure are synonymous with far away lands
or, in other words, that the grass is always greener on the other side.
Let’s take another look at this grass beneath our feet
and let’s find the exoticism close to home.
The second idea, is to look for the pleasures of traveling simply.
slowly and soberly.
Often, when we think about our next trip,
We think, ok, so here I have three weeks of vacation,
I am going to Ardèche or Corsica.
So over there, there’s this, this, this, this, this and this to see.
Ok, so I need to get better organized
to discover as much as possible.
We create a to do list, like at work.
Besides, we often say,
“I did Ardèche” or “I did Corsica”.
And then we finally realize
that discovering the ten must see things
doesn’t necessarily make us happier.
And conversely, we can practice slow tourism.
Rather than travel more to see more,
the idea is to not see everything, but to see it better.
Immerse yourself in a place, reconnect with nature.
Take the time to talk to people,
go with the flow, and above all, don’t have too many expectations.
And finally, the last idea, is to seek out experiences
rather than destinations.
Here again, often, when we think about our next trip
we think, where do I want to go?
Quite logical.
What if we asked ourselves instead, what experiences do I want to have?
And that totally changes our way of approaching travel.
Because by asking this question,
it’s the experience that leads us to the destination, not the other way around.
And the benefit of seeking out these experiences,
is that we realize that everything we profoundly desire
is often accessible in our own country
The definition of the word travel,
is the action of going to a relatively distant or foreign place.
What if the times we live in was finally the opportunity
to redefine this far away place?
What if far away is not a destination,
but an experience full of sensations?
What if far away doesn’t consist of leaving our country,
but of leaving our comfort zone?
What if far away is not a journey beyond our borders,
but an inner journey deep down inside ourselves?
What if far away isn’t an unknown land,
but the freedom of a simple adventure?
Then there are no borders anymore for travel and adventure,
the far away is everywhere all around us.
You just have to go look for it
to feel the pleasures of traveling close to home,
all while helping to preserve nature, living beings and future generations.
So, I wish you all very beautiful distant journeys
right next door to you.