Topic 44 Travel with a companion vs. travel alone. Traveling is a favorite recreation for many people, especially for young students

Traveling is a favorite recreation for many people, especially for young students. It can enable us (Это позволит нам) not only to accumulate our knowledge about history, culture, geography and local tradition, but also to edify (наставлять, поучать) our minds and spirits greatly. However, upon the question, which is better, traveling alone or together with several friends, people seem to have different opinions. As far as I am concerned, I like to travel with friends.

When traveling to other places, the most important thing for us to consider is safety. In China, many famous scenery spots with Buddhist temples or shrines (святыни) are situated in deep mountains or remote areas. Travelers sometimes have to go on a tiring (утомительная) and even dangerous road before they can arrive at these places: crossing rivers with rapid currents, climbing high mountains, walking along a narrow path (по узкой тропинке) on deep cliffs etc. If a person travels with others, he may receive aids (помощь, поддержка) or lend a hand to (протянуть руку помощи) his companion in time of needs. Several years ago, I traveled with some other people to Wuyi Mountain, a famous scenery spot in Fujian Province. When climbing a high cliff, one of the people slipped (поскользнулся), but he was grasped (схвачен) by hand almost instantaneously by a man at his side. If he had traveled there alone, he would have fallen down the high cliff and injured himself.

beautiful / majestic / picturesque scenery — красивый, прекрасный, живописный пейзаж wild scenery — дикий пейзаж

Another reason why I prefer to travel with others is that we can ease (облегчить) the feeling

of loneliness and nostalgia by talking with each other. When traveling to far away (далеко) and unfamiliar places, we may easily fall into a low spirit and have strong nostalgic feeling. There are numerous ancient Chinese literary works, poems or essays etc., which describe such feeling on road. A man sat in an empty hub, facing a small lamp, seeing the dumping rain outside the window, etc., all constitute (все представляет собой) a typical picture of a lonely traveler. But if at this time, the traveler had a companion to chat with him, his sad feeling would be much lessened (намного уменьшилось).

In a higher sense, life is like a traveling, most of us need someone to accompany us to go through the road. I think those who have to live alone are unfortunate ones (несчастны) in human society.