Booking Your Travel

As the long winter nights wind down, and we become weary of the blustery weather in Western New York, we begin to think about all those places we’ve wanted to visit. Imagine the possibilities: relaxing cruises, adventurous road trips, sunny beaches, exciting cities, and exotic landscapes! Before long, we find ourselves checking fares on Expedia, or consulting Carnival Cruise Line schedules, or, maybe, most impulsive of all, gassing up the car with the latest Triple A map spread out on the hood!

The lure of travel and the desire to see new things have always worked powerfully on the human psyche. And when actual visits to other places are not within the budget or must be put off to another day, we can turn to books and read the personal accounts of great travelers like Marco Polo and Charles Darwin. And, just in case the real world isn’t exciting enough, we can invariably rely on the imaginations of authors like Homer and Defoe and Melville to present us with fantastic adventures to enjoy in the comfort of cozy armchairs, bathtubs, or hammocks.

To help you make some reading choices, we have gathered a remarkable group of books and other materials which relate to travel, and displayed them here for your delectation. This is the first time that the RIT Wallace Center Cultural Collections have combined forces to select and curate a single, building-wide exhibition. It has been an amazing experience for us, and we hope that you, the viewer, will find much of interest, including:

1. Unique diaries, photographs, and travel-related documents from the RIT Archives
2. Posters from the Travel Poster Collection
3. Books from the Cary Graphic Arts Collection

So, settle in, and enjoy the riches set out for you here. May they inspire you to pack your bags and set out on a journey of your own. And, remember: the return can be as satisfying as the departure!

So far is a thorough love and enjoyment of travel from interfering with the love of home, that perhaps no one can thoroughly enjoy his home who does not sometimes wander away. They are like exertion and rest, each the complement of the other; so that, though it may seem paradoxical, one of the greatest pleasures of travel is the return; and no one who has not roamed abroad, can realize the devotion which the wanderer feels for Domiduca–the sweet and gentle goddess who watches over our coming home.

—Sir John Lubbock