The Philosophy Behind the Modern-Day Grand Tour 2.0
The way I'll live my life for the next decade or so
It was Hunter S. Thompson who wrote, “Don't look for goals; look for a way of life. Choose a path that lets your abilities function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of your desires.” In my many years of finding my so-called ‘life’s path,’ I have created, or rather stumbled across a “way of life” that I can see myself living for at least the next decade to come. I call it:
The modern-day grand tour, or the Grand Tour 2.0.
The Original Grand Tour
Throughout the 17th-19th centuries, the Europeans introduced something that would change the course of history: the Grand Tour.
Young, upper-class aristocrats from the U.K. would travel across Europe to major cities such as Paris and Rome to learn more about different countries' culture, music, language, geography, art, politics - primarily to broaden one's perspective of the world. During tours, they would document what they had learned, communicate with locals, and bring knowledge back to improve their lives and society.
“The custom served as an educational rite of passage. The primary value of the Grand Tour lay in its exposure to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent. It also provided the only opportunity to view specific works of art, and possibly the only chance to hear certain music.” - Wikipedia
The Modern Day Grand Tour
While the idea has died off, its spirit continues to live on. I want to bring it back, not just for myself but to inspire every young, ambitious person to embark on their own modern-day Grand Tour: taking the pioneering spirit of a revolutionary historical idea and putting a modern spin to it. And what you get out of this experience is a profound sense of awe, wonder, and curiosity. This is the reality I want to create. And live in.
The Grand Tour 2.0 has 3 primary aspects (which I’ll go over in more detail):
Artistry: Seeing the world in a lens of the Romanticist and process of creation
Adventure: Driven by an insatiable desire to explore all there is in the world
Academia: Challenging the traditional education system, prioritizing curiosity
When I was young, I remember being the biggest fan of OG Pokémon movies. These movies left such a vivid mark in my childhood - seeing people like Ash Ketchum live a life in adventure mode, exploring uncharted territory as they traverse through the imaginary world of Pokémon. Fast forward to now, I see the world as a realm of infinite exploration. Every place I visit, there's always something new to explore, which creates such a thrill when you're standing at the edge of the frontier.
1 | The Soul of an Artist
I regard myself as a romanticist at heart. Perhaps it’s something I was always born with, but there is no shying away from my artistic nature. While this romantic nature has enabled me to feel deep emotions on all spectrums and highly sensitive to certain environmental cues, it has allowed me to see the world in a highly idealized, optimistic, inspiration-filled way. And I would never trade that with anything else.
I connect with the world in an artistic way - through music and films. Paired with my transcendent attachment for adventure, I create music films, traveling all across the world to tell stories about the human experience. Part of the philosophy of the modern day Grand Tour is creating a deep connection with the individual and the world. The medium is the art - music, filmmaking, photography, writing, etc.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...” - Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”
2 | The Call for Adventure
Just like being “rooted” in one place for most of your life is the default, being “unrooted” is the new default for the modern-day Grand Tour. You’re often on the move all the time, exploring new corners of the world, connecting with different cultures, and learning more about yourself and your place in the world in the process. One of my favorite writers, Venkatesh Rao, describes it perfectly:
“I am nomadic for the time being. I just move through places, the way you stay put in places. Nomadism is not a profession, lifestyle, or restless spiritual quest. It is a stable and restful state of mind where constant movement is simply a default chosen behavior that frames everything else. For the nomad, a period of rootedness is unstable, like travel for the rooted.” - On Being an Illegible Person
Wanderlust is the wonder drug. During my study abroad right now in China, I’m blown away by the sheer number of cities I have yet to visit, and every time I book train tickets to a new city, a rush of adrenaline races through: new opportunities to connect with the country and people, new adventures to be experienced, and new stories to take away from. When wonder drives your life, you’re living the life Dee Hock describes as “a magical odyssey to be experienced.” Life becomes f*cking electric.
“When you bind naturally restless feet, the minds that have evolved to animate them seek movement elsewhere. Geography is just too fundamental to our psychology. If we aren’t moving, it is because there is too much friction and cost. Wanderlust never goes away. It merely becomes too costly to sustain as you age.” - On Being an Illegible Person (cont.)
3 | The Rupture of Traditional Academia
If you’ve followed my blog for long enough, you’ll know that I’m incredibly bullish on non-conventional forms of education and stubbornly critical of our current education systems (check out my essays on “The Deification of the University Clock Tower,” “Observations From My 1st Year of College,” and “Redefining Learning”). Simply said, I’ve always been looking for ways to satisfy my intellectual thirst.
“In school we are taught that valuable learning is the result of attendance; that the value of learning increases with the amount of input; and, finally, that this value can be measured and documented by grades and certificates. In fact, learning is the human activity which least needs manipulation by others. Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting.” - Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich
I believe travel and artistic creation to be one of the best forms of academia. There is nothing more effective, fun, and satisfying than experiential learning, where you’re actively immersed with the environment around you - through conversations you have with people, observations you make during an activity, or even reflections you write about after an experience. Real learning is letting curiosity take over.
So It Begins…
The modern-day grand tour, the Grand Tour 2.0. The way of the artist, adventurer, and academic. That’s the “way of life” I’ll be living by for the next decade or so: living “unrooted,” constant travel to uncharted territory, and in the process, meeting amazing people around the world, creating artistic magnum opuses, and following my intellectual curiosity. Embark on your modern-day grand tour. It’ll change your life.
Chasing wanderlust,
Jeston Lu