journey, experience, danger, path
behind the voyage there is often a desire for existential change. travel is atonement for a sin, initiation, cultural growth, experince: "The Indo-European root of the word "experince" is per, which has been interpreted as "to attempt", "to test", "to risk", connotations that survive in the word "peril". the oldest connotations of trial of per appear in the Latin terms for experince: experior, experimentum. this conception of experince as a test, as a passage through a form of action that measures the true dimensions and nature of the person or the object that undergoes it, also describes the most ancient conception of the effects of the voyage on the traveler. many of the secondary meanings of per explicitly refer to motion: "to cross a space", "to reach a goal", "to go outside". the implication of risk present in "peri" is evident in the gothic kin of per ( in which the P becomes F): ferm, fare, fear, ferry. one of the german words for experience, Erfahrung, comes from old German, irfaran: "to travel", to go out, to cross or to wander. the deeply rooted idea that the voyage is an experince that tests and perfects the character of the traveler is clear in the German adjective bewandert, which today means "wise", "expert" or "versed", but which originally ( in the texts of the 15th century) simply was applied to someone who had "traveled much".
Erich J. Leed, The mind of the traveler. from gilgamesh to global tourism. basic books, new york, 1991