As the tourism industry rebounds from the pandemic, more of us will be hitting the road this summer, drawn to new destinations. But trips can bring regret, too. Was it really worth it to visit a strange place where we don’t quite fit in?
Elizabeth Bishop famously explored the quandary in “Questions of Travel,” a poem first published in the New Yorker in 1956. Bishop (1911-1979) knew a lot about displacement. Born in Worcester, Mass., she lived in her early years with various relatives after her father died and her mother became too ill to care for her. Bishop continued to wander widely throughout her life, seldom feeling content. Plagued by alcoholism, she died at age 68 of a brain aneurysm.
