The tall buildings of Shinjuku as seen from the Meiji Jingu (shrine) and forest. – Tokyo

Welcome to Wayfarer Daves. I’m Dave Hansche, and for my first post, I’d like to talk about the experience of traveling and a bit about why I do it. I am not really what one might think of when they picture a travel blogger. I have a regular job, an apartment full of stuff, no desire to move, and living out of a backpack for several months of the year doesn’t appeal to me that much. In fact, that is why Mr. Krigbaum and I decided to work together on this blog. Many of the travel blogs I’ve seen are written by people who quit their day job, sold most of their possessions, bought a backpack, and now travel the world as their passion and their career. There is nothing wrong with this, however for most people, myself included, this just isn’t practical. I like having a home to come back to. I like having stuff. I like having a regular weekly routine. And yet, here I am as the co-author of a newly launched travel blog, because I still love traveling.

The view from the front of Oyama Afuri Jinja (shrine) in Isehara, Japan.

So, why do I love traveling?  The same reason most people do I suppose.  There is the sense of adventure and of not knowing what is around the next corner.  There is the excitement of seeing someplace new for the first time.  There is a fascination with learning the history and significance behind these places.  Sure, I could read about it in a book, but being there brings it all to life.  It is like I can almost see what the people in the past saw.  I can touch what they touched.  Smell what they smelled.  But that isn’t the biggest draw for me.  There is a feeling, a surreal moment that hits me when I visit these places that is hard to explain.  It is similar to a line Hawkeye had in the last Avengers movie.  Except, in my case, it goes “I’m a poor kid from the mid-west.  I am on a horse.  I’m chasing kangaroos through the Australian outback.  None of this makes any sense!”  I mean, how does a guy like me end up in that situation in the first place.  It’s absurd.  People like me, with my background, from the kind of place I am from, don’t do these things.  We read about them in flashy magazines and dream about seeing it someday.  And yet, that actually happened.  Even now, more than ten years later, I still sometimes have that feeling.  As recently as two weeks ago, I found myself standing on the side of a mountain at a small Japanese shrine looking down at the city sprawling to the sea in the distance, and that still, small voice within me whispered “what on earth are you doing here?”  If you had told me when I was in high school what my future would hold, I would have laughed at you.  And yet, here I am.  And that is what I love the most about travel.  No matter how much I have seen or how many places I have been, I can still find that feeling of amazement and wonder.  All I have to do is walk out the front door with my camera.
I hope I can share a little of that wonder with everyone out there who reads this, and above all I hope I can inspire you to do the same.

Locals dressed as samurai march in Odawara, Japan.