The One Factor that Affects Every Part of your Vacation

Terrain: The Ground Beneath your Feet

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.” Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Just like Katherine, when I travel, I look at the foliage. My attention goes straight for the exciting, swirl of the masses in the cities. I delight in the tantalizing food, the ephemeral sounds and the unique architecture. I pay little conscious attention to the rise and fall of the land, the ground beneath my feet usually remains unappreciated.

Without the terrain, nothing else exists, it is necessary, it is what makes all of that foliage possible and it is why we travel.

Suitability for Human Settlement

Terrain dictates where humans settle either in large or small numbers. Large cities often lie near mountains but almost never actually on mountainsides. Getting around steep slopes, while providing spectacular views, is difficult.

When I choose to visit Tokyo, Vladivostok or Los Angeles, I am choosing to visit relatively flat places that I can easily get around. I have never actually decided to go to the Himalayas, but if I did, I would be going there for the terrain, for the challenge of it and for its beauty and I would almost certainly be arriving via an airport situated in more suitable terrain.

When I think about where I want to go next, Morocco, it is the shifting, unique terrain of the Sahara Desert that I want to visit more than anything else. Not very suitable for human habitation but great for experiencing something different.

Water Boundaries and Movement

When I was in my twenties and thirties, I was all about traveling to beaches. I loved playing volleyball on Hermosa Beach in L.A., getting my hair braided and eating mangos in Cartagena, Colombia, SCUBA diving in the Turks and Caicos islands and then watching the sunset with a rum drink in hand.

Some beaches are wide, beautiful expanses leading to vast oceans while others are tiny secluded inlets bordering less vast seas but where the land meets the water is dictated by the terrain.

The next time you are laying out your beach towel and preparing for a lazy day in the sun, take a moment to appreciate the terrain.

Soil

I don’t think I have thought, even once, about soil while I was traveling. I did however think a lot about the food I was eating. A varied terrain means more diversity in the plants and animals that inhabit a country.

When I think of varied terrain, the country that comes to mind is Colombia. Colombia has huge mountains, wide plains, tropical beaches, and rainforests. In short, it has just about every kind of terrain you can imagine and it has the most diverse offering of fruits I have ever encountered. I still dream about the curuba juice I drank there and have never encountered since.

Military Strategy

Generally being a pacifist, I don’t think of military strategy as a huge selling point in my vacation plans. I do however love a good castle and when I think about it, castle location is dictated by terrain. How often do you go down to a castle? Almost never, castles are built on high places because they are easier to defend. They have great views because being able to see an enemy coming is vital.

I live in Spain, a land of many castles, and the most visited castle of them all is practically in my backyard. The Alhambra stands majestically atop a ridge with mountains in the background. It was the last Moorish stronghold in Spain.

Weather Patterns

So much of our travel plans are dictated by weather and the weather is dictated largely by terrain. Mountains attract clouds and clouds produce rain and snow. I have enjoyed so many ski vacations in the mountains of the world thanks to steep terrain.

I have also loved spending time in natural onsens in Japan. The water is heated naturally by the Earth’s interior. I grew up in a tiny village in Central California and one of my favorite things to do was go to the even tinier village (population 5) of Old Benton. The owners of the town (yes, the entire town) were friends of my parents and they would let us swim in the hot lake next to the town. It was surrounded by desert and mountains, difficult but spectacular terrain.

Check out the beautiful terrain of California in this post by Michele Maize

Transportation

Your options for getting to any travel destination are dictated by terrain. Airplanes need runways to land and take off and those are best constructed in relatively flat and open terrain although I have seen them in incredibly tight places. The Gibraltar airport is something to behold. It is perched on a tiny bit of land and cars entering the city have to wait if a plane is taking off or landing because the main road into the city crosses the runway.

Train rides are made more exciting when they go through tunnels or scale mountains but they are also slower. One of the most spectacular train rides I have experienced went through the Swiss Alps and dropped me off near the Matterhorn.

I once took a bus from Bogota to Pereira in Colombia. The terrain was so steep going through the Andies, there were times I thought we were going to plunge right over the side to our deaths. Luckily we didn’t, but I did hear of cars and buses that weren’t so lucky.

Conclusion

It might take you a lifetime to realize it but just as Katherine discovered, her love for Heathcliff was stronger and more vital to her than her love for Lindon, the unglamorous terrain is what makes travel what it is. Cultures and all of the eye-catching things they create, change quickly. The terrain however changes slowly, it supports and frames all of our experiences.

For more terrains, Ronald Smit has written an article showing how they contrast with each other, and it think it perfectly illustrates why terrain is so vital for why we travel.