Life as a Traveler — An Interview with Travel Writer Park Seongho

□ You've dreamed of closing your eyes, spinning a globe, and setting off wherever your finger lands.
□ Rather than seeing travel as an unconditional good, you want to understand its shadowy side too.
□ There's never enough room in your backpack when you pack.
□ You love animals.

If even one of these applies to you, let's hear from writer Park Seongho, who has made travel his profession. You might just pick up some hard-won travel wisdom along the way.

Interviewee * Park Seongho
Interviewer Ryu Sunwoo
Photos Kim Yoonkyung
* Park Seongho graduated from the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST and has since walked the path of a traveler and travel writer. He has written three books, including 'And Then, Bananas,' and has appeared on numerous programs such as 'World Theme Travelogue' and 'Korea Travelogue.' He continues to give a wide range of lectures drawing on his travel experiences.

A serious first question. Window seat vs. aisle seat—what's your pick?
That's a heavy question. (Laughs) Window, definitely. The most important thing about travel is feeling like you've actually left. Sometimes your body has departed but your mind hasn't caught up yet. The unfamiliar scenery outside the plane window is a great starting point for a trip. During the flight, I keep the window shade open about a third of the way and read or write by the sliver of light that comes through.

Your new book ¹'A Traveler's Animal Notebook' has just been published. What does your daily life look like these days?
I go on the radio, give a lot of lectures, but I have my own routine so it's not too hard. I always wake up at 6 a.m. and go to bed around 10 p.m.—whatever job you have, it's not common to need to be up before 6 in the morning. If I don't have a lecture, I pack a lunch in the morning and head to my studio. And I always have pasta for dinner. Eating the same thing and repeating the same routine lets me spend my energy elsewhere.

Do you have a routine when you're traveling too?
I do. It's always to wake up early and go to bed early. I don't like crowds, so I try to get up before sunrise whenever possible. Even the most famous destinations are empty around dawn. So I mostly wander around in the early morning or at night, and rest at my accommodation during the day. I also have my own rhythm when it comes to spending money. If I have a week's budget, I'll stay six nights at a very cheap guesthouse and then splurge on one night at a five-star hotel. It's the same with food. I'll eat cheap street food most of the time, then treat myself to a Michelin-starred restaurant once. It makes for a much more memorable trip than sleeping at ordinary places and eating at ordinary restaurants the whole time.

1: A travel essay and record of animal observations centered on the animals the author encountered while traveling to various regions around the world.

Was there a special reason you started documenting your travels through the theme of animals?
I'm someone who's happiest holed up alone in a room reading, and even just one appointment a week can wear me out. I'm an INFP on the MBTI. But animals never make me feel uncomfortable. My father, who loves animals, influenced me too. Growing up, I watched five or six puppies running around our yard from a young age. I've raised more than 20 dogs over the years. Maybe that's why animals were always at the center of my travels. I've gone looking for wild animals on my own, and in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador I joined tours searching for wild parrots deep in the jungle. About four or five years ago, I decided I should write a book about these experiences.

'A Traveler's Animal Notebook' introduces 16 species of wild animals—some encountered by chance, others sought out deliberately.
I think the most important thing about travel is seeing what you can't normally see. When I encounter an animal you can't find in Korea, I get a powerful feeling of, ‘Ah, I really am in this country!’ Living creatures have an incredible power. In the Andes, when a single condor cuts across the sky, hundreds of pairs of eyes turn to it at once. It's a moment when a single bird seems to completely change the air of the world.

Among all the animals you've met, is there one you'd like to have a conversation with?
Never, actually. To begin with, it's rare for an animal to show any interest in me at all. Animals are indifferent to people. You can't bond with them the way you do with a pet. Because we perceive the world so differently, I sometimes find that even more fascinating. When I'm free diving or scuba diving in the middle of the ocean and I see a creature like a manatee, it's right in front of me, yet it feels like a being from another planet. It's like making contact with an entirely different world.

The very idea of ‘bonding’ with an animal is a human-centered way of thinking, isn't it?
Exactly. That's only possible with domesticated animals. Wild animals carry a certain mystery. And that mystery is exactly their appeal.

Having traveled to more than 90 countries, you must have run into the language barrier constantly. Any secrets to communicating well in unfamiliar linguistic environments?
Honestly, I don't communicate that much to begin with. (Laughs) I'm not the type to approach people and strike up a conversation. And these days, language causes far fewer awkward situations than before. Wherever I go, it's often the locals who pull out a translation app first. In the ten years since I started traveling, it feels like fewer and fewer countries remain stuck in an analog era. Even Maasai chiefs living in remote areas carry smartphones now.

How do you feel about that kind of change?
It's not an appealing development for a traveler. Everywhere is gradually becoming more alike.

Traveling lets you focus on yourself, but doesn't it sometimes feel isolating too?
Sometimes, yes. When I spend months alone in the mountains of Georgia, there are times when every thought inevitably revolves around myself. But that seems to resolve naturally the moment the trip ends and I come back to Korea. While I'm in Korea, I make a real effort to meet new people. Living as a traveler, I sometimes worry I might lose touch with the values or way of life that Korean society generally holds. So I make a point of seeing friends with regular jobs and listening to their struggles and concerns.

What kinds of concerns do you have, then?
Things like, ‘I've already been to most of the places Koreans typically visit—where should I go next?’ Should I go to Antarctica or the Arctic, that kind of dilemma. Does that concern come from a sense of duty, or personal curiosity? I think it's both. There's definitely a sense of obligation as a professional traveler. Travel naturally imposes a lot of ‘shoulds.’ Like the idea that if you go to Barcelona, Spain, you have to see the Sagrada Familia. There's this obligation—you must eat this here, you must see that there. There are moments I definitely feel worn out. Still, I want to keep traveling to and exploring new worlds, and to let people know, once I've returned, that such worlds exist.

²A lecture you gave right before graduating college opened the door to becoming a travel writer. What keeps you giving lectures so consistently?
While working part-time at my university library, I read Alain de Botton's 'Status Anxiety,' which includes the line: “If you have a problem that makes your reality difficult, exploring a wider world can be a good way to overcome it.” At the time, I felt a great deal of anxiety as a college student. When you're trapped in a repetitive daily routine, the problems or stress that arise within it can start to feel like the whole of your life. But once you sense how vast the world is, the problems you're carrying start to look small. I want to show people the wide world I've discovered through travel and offer them some comfort. That's my sense of mission as a traveler, and the driving force that keeps me in this profession. Ultimately, I think travel is just spending money to have fun. But if it were only about having fun, it couldn't be a profession. So I'm still in the process of finding meaning in it myself.

It's surprising to hear you call it ‘spending money to have fun,’ when you also describe travel as difficult.
There's a line in Pascal Mercier's 'Night Train to Lisbon': “Life is not what we live, it is what we imagine we are living.” It's not the moment of experience itself, but the memory I edit afterward, that truly becomes my life. I think travel works the same way. While you're in the middle of it, it can be uncomfortable, exhausting, sometimes even grueling—but once you return from the trip, the negative memories tend to fade away. If feeling unable to escape is one of life's biggest burdens, then when travel gets hard, all you have to do is leave that place.

Or you come back.
I think I can keep traveling precisely because I have somewhere to come back to. I get asked a lot where I want to live eventually, and I want to live in the neighborhood where I was born, for good. Ironically, the more I travel, the stronger that feeling gets. Living as an outsider isn't easy either. At first it feels exciting and like you're something special, but eventually you realize you can never truly belong to their way of life, and that can get lonely. So I end up thinking I want to live among people who eat kimchi jjigae for dinner. (laughs)

2: Before graduating college, she personally arranged a venue on campus and gave a lecture on her six-continent round-the-world trip. Articles and interviews about her followed in various media outlets, setting her on the path to becoming a travel writer.

Do you have your own know-how or method for keeping the thrill of travel alive?
I study. I think the reason people lose curiosity is that the world they know is too small. For example, the first time you see a temple in Egypt, it's fascinating and fun, but if you keep looking at it, it quickly grows dull. But if you'd studied as much as an Egyptologist, the same sight would only grow more interesting no matter how many times you saw it. When you study humanities, history, culture, and religion, an endless unknown world unfolds before you, and the number of travel destinations connected to that world multiplies enormously. It's not just the studying you do before a trip that's fun — studying after you get back is fun too. Learning the deep story behind a scenery you once thought was simply pretty turns out to be quite fascinating.

Which do you enjoy more: the immediate experience on site, or the process of coming back and recording and mulling it over?
I can't choose, because both are absolutely necessary processes. Albert Camus said, “Life requires time to be lived, and time to bear witness to it.” That means you need time to act and create new events, and you also need time to look back and reflect. When you travel a lot, it's easy to fall into the illusion that you understand everything simply because you experienced it firsthand. That's why I think the time spent reflecting afterward is essential too.

Is there something you always pack without fail?
My MP3 player is my most important companion. I tend to listen to music that matches the destination. When I listen to it again later, the scenery from that moment unfolds right before my eyes. The song I listened to most while driving across the Serengeti plains was Maroon 5's — even though the lyrics have nothing to do with it. (laughs) Even now, whenever I hear that song, that moment of driving across the plains comes back to me.

Please introduce a special item you carry while traveling.
A collection of words I gather while listening to music. I feel very strongly about the importance of words. You think so much while traveling. I believe it's ultimately words that give logical, concrete shape to those floating thoughts. The words we use in everyday life are limited, so even when you see something amazing, all you can say is ‘amazing,’ ‘incredible,’ or ‘awesome.’ If you collect words that felt good while listening to music and keep looking back at them, your thinking becomes far richer. Both what you feel in the moment and the record you produce become much more vivid and varied.

Is there an interesting word from your collection you'd like to share?
There are a few words that make me feel good. ‘Delinquent circle.’ That word reminds me of the pack of stray dogs that used to wander the neighborhood every morning in Egypt. There are also plenty of words that don't normally come to mind — things like ‘the primordial cosmos’ or ‘quark theory in quantum mechanics.’ But when I come across something incomprehensible and complicated while traveling, a sentence like ‘their way of life was as baffling as quark theory in quantum mechanics’ sometimes fits perfectly.

How long does it take you to pack?
Not long at all. I just throw clothes into my backpack and I'm ready to go. Even packing for a year takes just one backpack. Carrying a lot of luggage is exhausting.

Give us a tip for packing well.
The know-how isn't packing well — it's discarding well. I don't bring things I don't need, and if I can get something locally, I don't bring it with me. I wear sweatshirts the most while traveling, but I don't remember ever packing one. You can buy a sweatshirt in pretty much any country.

I'm curious if you have a favorite playlist for while you're traveling.
I listen to a lot of old pop songs. I guess I can't help becoming more of an analog person over time. (laughs) On nights full of stars, I listen to 'Vincent,' and on long drives, songs like 'Take Me Home, Country Roads.' Beyond that, I listen to everything — chanson, pop, K-pop, hip-hop, every genre.

Do you always listen to music on your MP3 player?
Yes. There are places where it's hard to charge a smartphone, and in many countries, simply showing a smartphone can be dangerous.

You must face fear often in situations like that.
I'm always afraid. I'm not a brave person. I'm such a coward that I've never once watched a horror movie in a theater. I'm the type who changes the channel the moment a horror movie ad comes on. So I feel scared a lot of the time. Still, I keep going, thinking, if not now while I'm young, then when? For now, curiosity still wins out over fear.

Where's your next trip?
Well, my book just came out, so I can't just take off right now. Traveling around Korea for lectures, visiting new regions, and meeting new people — that's a kind of travel too. I'm thinking about heading somewhere exotic next year.

Is there anywhere left that still feels exotic to you?
Places like Oman or destinations in Africa can't help but feel exotic. I've been thinking I'd like to go live on Cabo Verde (República de Cabo Verde), an island nation off Africa. When I choose a destination, I look at a world map, and I found it while zooming in on the western edge of Africa. I love places you only discover once you zoom in. (laughs)

Is there a particular landscape you especially love?
I love a landscape with nothing but a flat horizon stretching on and on. A place with no one around, just me alone. That's why I love deserts. In places like the Namib Desert, there really is nothing at all. Once you rent a 4x4 jeep, fill it with camping food and water, and load up fuel tanks, there's nothing left to fear. It feels like you're filming 'Mad Max.'

Lastly, is there something you want to say through your travels?
I'll quote a famous line from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” I don't think my job is to teach people how to book a plane ticket, but rather to tell them stories about the wider world so that they feel moved to leave — that's what I believe I can do.