In the past month, I met six Couchsurfing members, and I was surprised to find that four of them seemed unclear about the purpose of their travels. They spent most of their time sleeping and relaxing in their guesthouse rooms. Among them were two Germans and two Americans. The German visitors stayed in Benares for four days but didn’t explore much. They missed out on key experiences like Aarti and walks along the ghats, and only briefly watched a funeral without showing much interest in Aarti or Sarnath.

The American travelers were students. One of them was studying Urdu at an institute in Lucknow for a research project on Hindu-Muslim tensions. I was eager to learn more about her research, but unfortunately, I had to leave for Gwalior the day I met her. The other American was learning Hindi with Virendra Singh and had been living in Varanasi for a month. The Urdu student knew about Aarti but was unaware of Sarnath, while the Hindi student knew about Sarnath but hadn’t heard of Aarti. He had never even visited Godaulia, the downtown area of Benares. I’m unsure how he spent his time over the past month.

After finally seeing Aarti, he remarked that it was possibly the most impressive part of Benares for him. Natasha, the Urdu student, also enjoyed Aarti and decided to visit Sarnath the following day. Swami Vivekananda once said that if you have free time, traveling is a great way to utilize it because it allows you to learn about different cultures, engage with people, and make the world a better place. I believe that travel should be about learning and experiencing new things, but the individuals I met seemed to be traveling merely because they had extra time and money, or perhaps to boast about their travels. They could have gained similar knowledge and insights by spending time online in their own countries. I’m still puzzled about their real purpose for traveling.