With the pandemic easing in the US, there's a pent-up wish to break out of the rooms we've occupied for the past 14 months or so. Now, much of Europe -- long a primary destination for American travelers -- beckons, with the European Union's announcement that it's opening its doors this summer to Americans who have been vaccinated. So many of us, during lockdown, have fantasized about going abroad again.

But a couple of questions hover: Why do we actually want to go "abroad" in the first place? Will the experience be different if we do?

I've been lucky to live abroad for long periods, having spent seven years in college in Scotland in the late '60s and early '70s. That whetted my appetite for living a kind of transatlantic life. I've spent a good deal of time in Italy, the country of my grandparents, and it's been the rare year when I haven't sat in a café in Rome or Naples, walked in the Scottish countryside, or dined with friends in London, which (for reasons of work) has become a kind of second home, as familiar to me as the state of Vermont, where I've spent most of my life. As I say, I've been lucky.

The reasons to travel are abundant and obvious enough: there is so much to learn, so much to see and do. But early on I realized that travel also affords a fresh perspective on home. You travel in order to go home again with open eyes.

During my first stint in Britain, I discovered (or at least came to believe) that the UK wasn't a "throw-away" culture like the one I'd known in the states, where you bought new clothing for school every fall, and where clothes were actually designed -- like so many products -- to be tossed out rather quickly: fashion itself as a kind of designed obsolescence.

The Scots were by thrifty by reputation -- deservedly so. They valued high-quality clothes and furniture that wouldn't need to be quickly replaced. I've tended, ever since my time there, to prefer items of good quality, hanging onto them for dear life. To this day, I'm shocked by the wastefulness of Americans, who fill dumpsters with things that most of the world would be delighted to keep using for years to come. Travel awakens you to ways of being in the world. But it also helps you rethink what "home" means. "Why do you go away?" Terry Pratchett once said . "So that you can come back." For instance, I came to appreciate the entrepreneurial energy of the United States when living in Europe, where people often seemed to me willing to fall back on settled ways, as if afraid to try new things. The American "can-do" spirit is real. For all our faults, we're a nation of risk-takers, and that has paid off handsomely in many ways. I do wonder what it will feel like to go abroad again after such a long pause. Will I get the same old rush when I land in a far-flung airport? I know that I long to sit in a café in Europe, to smell the exotic smells, hear the accents, even the seeming cacophony of a foreign tongue. I want to watch the unfamiliar hand gestures and facial expressions. Views of Paris from the air Views of Paris from the air Place des Vosges: Photographer Jeffrey Milstein's straight-down images of Paris were taken on two rarely granted flights directly over the city. They're featured in his new book "Paris: From the Air." Views of Paris from the air Pyramide du Louvre: "One of the nicer symbolic images of old and new is the pyramid, the I.M. Pei pyramid, in the courtyard of the Louvre," said Milstein. Views of Paris from the air Arc de Triomphe: The book also features angled shots of the city's neighborhoods and famous monuments, including the Arc de Triomphe. Views of Paris from the air Centre Pompidou: Most of this contemporary art museum's functional elements -- including electrical cables and water and sewer pipes -- are located on the building's exterior. Views of Paris from the air Gardens at Versailles: Images of Louis XIV's formal gardens and elaborate palace were captured on separate flights over Versailles. Yet during the pandemic I've developed a keener sense of the pleasures of just staying home. "I have traveled a good deal in Concord," wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden, and I can say the same now about Middlebury, Vermont. If you live deeply where you live, there is probably less need to venture abroad. David K. Leff coined the term "deep travel, " and I like this. "At its simplest," he writes, "deep travel is about mindful looking, about journeys that drill deep into a place rather than demanding distance to be interesting. It's about experience heightened by connecting diverse natural and cultural phenomena often hidden in plain sight, about seeing in four dimensions, in time as well as space." Having traveled deeply in Middlebury during the pandemic, I hope I've learned something I can take with my on my next adventure abroad. The skills of "deep travel" may come in handy. In fact, my wife and I have been hoping for some time to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary on a Greek island, and this journey is approaching. Greece is apparently eager to welcome those who've been vaccinated, and their economy depends heavily on tourism. So we've rented a small house for two weeks in the coming summer on the island of Hydra, hoping to sit in a lazy café at the old harbor there, watching as the sun sets on the Aegean Sea with a glass of local wine in hand. Sign up for CNN Opinion's new newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook We plan to hike in the hills in the early mornings, before the sun becomes impossibly hot. And to read novels under the shade of a cypress tree in the afternoons as donkeys and mules go walking by (cars are forbidden on the island). I'm curious to see how, in the wake of this terrible pandemic, our feelings about being abroad will have shifted. I really don't know how we'll react. For me, one thing is sure: it won't be the same. But it might still be wonderful.

Source: CNN

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