Traveling as an experience of finding oneself in the figure of the independent traveler

Abstract

The article reflects on the act of traveling as a significant experience essential to life, through a qualitative, descriptive and bibliographical approach. The purpose of this study is to analyze the development of the figure of the independent traveler, the subject of the study, who donates his or her time to travel and decides to travel without becoming attached to financial and social conditions. It verifies, in the process of travel, the construction of its image, whose experience exercised independently, can promote transformation, knowledge and self-knowledge. It turns out a search which is beyond the encounter with the other, the unknown, being rather a reunion with oneself. The subjective aspects of the act of traveling are considered when analyzing two literary reports of independent travelers.