As I get more involved in the CouchSurfing project I'm realizing that the travel bug metaphor is an accurate one. Not only in the sense that you often come back from a trip "infected" with the desire to pack your bags and leave on a new journey. But the more you surround yourself with people for whom travel and intercultural exchange is a passion, a habit, and a priority in life, the travel bug can be caught and transmitted between people. Just try having a beer with someone who's recently come back from 3 months backpacking through China, or wandering around Ghana taking photos, or doing an internship in Uruguay, and not getting up from the table with a desire to get on the next bus to the airport.
This actually makes sense, given research that says you are who you hang around. Many emotions are supposedly contagious, and we justify our behaviour, good and bad, by whether others in our peer group are doing the same thing. So, if your friends are fat/happy/successful, you're more likely to be too. If you're friends are big spenders, good luck trying to keep a budget. So the contagiability of the travel bug isn't really that surprising. Being around people that realize that real travel doesn't include the word "all-inclusive", that thrive off of culture shock instead of fleeing it, that reorganize traditional ideas of home and work to go beyond 2 weeks of vacation per annum makes you want to be like them. You start to absorb their enthusiasm, and next thing you know you're constantly asking yourself, "Where should I go next?"
