Why Airports and Service Stations Are the Most Poetic Places You’ll Ever Visit

When we think of travel, we often imagine exotic destinations or breathtaking landscapes. But what about the places that lie between? The airports, train stations, and roadside service stations that mark the thresholds of our journeys? Far from being mere functional spaces, these transit hubs are rich with emotion and poetry.

Alain de Botton highlights how these liminal spaces evoke a shared sense of solitude and reflection. Strangers pass through together, united by the experience of waiting, anticipation, and the bittersweet loneliness of being between places. The stark lighting, functional furniture, and faded advertisements create a landscape that is at once bleak and strangely comforting.

Charles Baudelaire, the 19th-century poet, famously romanticized these modern travel spaces. His longing to escape and the melancholy of departure resonate with anyone who has stood in a station or boarded a ship, feeling the pull of the unknown.

These transit spaces prepare us emotionally for the journey ahead. They invite introspection and a quiet community of fellow travelers, each caught in their own stories. The takeoff of a plane, the rhythmic clatter of train wheels, the hum of a service station all become symbols of transformation and movement.

Next time you find yourself in an airport lounge or a roadside café, pause and notice the poetry around you. These places hold the emotional heart of travel and remind us that every journey is as much about the spaces in-between as the destinations themselves.

Sources: The Art of Travel - Alain de Botton (archive.org), SoBrief Summary 1 4