"These words are, I think, true words. I know that through travel I have possessed the world more completely, more satisfyingly than if I had acquired the whole earth by purchase or by conquest. There is no implication of selfishness in the kind of possession of which I speak. Whoever posesses the world through travel takes naught from any man. No one is poorer because you have made the world yours.
You have gained everything, but you are no monopolist. The wealth is there for all to share. It is not yours alone. You may invite all men and women to travel with you in imagination and they too may feel that they, like you, are rich in vivid mental pictures of places worth going to, of people worth knowing, of things that are world-famous.... Now I am at work with nothing but a sheet of paper and a pen to help me re-create the atmosphere of "otherwhere," to help me make real to those who have not seen, the things which I have seen and can still see with my mind's eye.
Word pictures are hard to paint. We are told that "words are the only thing that last forever." Therefore words should be the most durable pigments with which to paint pictures of the things that have seemed worthwhile, the things that have become one's property, in the sense in which travel endows one with a title deed to the entire world.
One great advantage of possessing the world through travel is that one may enjoy all the satisfactions of possession without the responsibilities of ownership. Now, in days when our most valuable assets become or threaten to become our most crushing liabilities, it is good to contemplate property which cannot depreciate but must increase in value, property which cannot be taxed by federal goverment, or state or city authorities, property which calls for no repairs or alterations.
Everything from real estate to diamond tiaras has had its vaunted worth reduced to pitiful and sometimes complete inconsequence. Stocks, bonds, and all manner of gilt-edged, beautifully engraved certificates of value, to secure which we have slaved and saved and denied ourselves the joys of travel, may sink in worth to such a point that it will seem absurd to pay the rental charges of a safe deposit box.
The only things I own which are still worth what they have cost me are my travel memories, the mind-pictures of places which I have been hoarding like a happy miser for more than a half century.
In the past I have reproached myself for my extravagance, for my lack of foresight, for my disregard of proper provision for the future. My wise friends saved and economized, went without things they wanted, denied themselves the costlier pleasures of the table, the bouquet of vintage wines, and the, to me, supreme joy of going places and seeing things.
And now, where are we? We, they, and I are all at the same dead-end of life's highway. They are weighted down by all the leaden burdens of their golden hopes gone wrong. They have their memories but these are memories of wise, dull, and frugal days of piling up hard-earned dollars in safe places where those dollars would increase and multiply and be there to console for all the pleasures that their owners had denied themselves and all the fun they had missed.
I, too, have nothing but my memories but I would not exchange my memories for theirs. I have a secret treasure upon which I can draw at will. I can bring forth, on the darkest day, bright diamonds of remembered joys, diamonds whose many facets reflect some happy dream come true, a small ambition gratified, a long-sought sensation, caught and savored to the full, a little journey made, an expedition carried to success, several circumnavigations of the globe accomplished.
Yes, it has been a good life. And it is good to rest, with nearly all of one's dreams realized. Dreams of going, seeing and doing most of the things that seemed worthwhile -- good to know that I have, in my own way, possessed the world."
-Burton Holmes, Renowned Photographer and World Traveler, 1953
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