“Traveling inspires camaraderie,” says Walser, and he doesn’t say why*. But I know why. It’s because, as age takes hold and actions become calcified, the opportunities for that exhilarating, perilous strangeness grow fewer. We become used to things, including ourselves. We settle for more polite and ritualized approaches to hanging out. The company of strangers has the power to upset all of this and to put us back on edge. It forces us to reckon with the idea that whatever happens next, for once, it won’t be what we planned on.

(* he says it in Berlin Stories)