Until 1914 I loved to travel I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

Hesse contrasts a youthful, outward-looking appetite for travel with a later, deliberate narrowing of physical movement. The hinge date—1914—signals the rupture of the First World War, after which cross-border travel became harder and, for many intellectuals, morally and psychologically fraught. The statement also hints at a shift from external exploration (Italy, India) to inward journeys: the kind of spiritual and psychological travel that becomes central to his later writing. The emphasis on Switzerland suggests both refuge and self-imposed seclusion—an attempt to preserve a private, contemplative life amid political upheaval and the pressures of public identity.