It's generally understood that travel can expand your horizons, and that is true. Visiting new places and experiencing new things can help you appreciate where you came from and how different things are in other parts of the world. You can also appreciate how similar things are in some aspects. Peoples and cultures change, but the core elements of what makes people human remain constant everywhere.
Going on a journey has allowed me to see the world and experience things from a new perspectiv. Here's how that came to be.
Getting A New Purpose
Lifehack says that travel can help you find what you want in life. It's a bold claim to make, but it's one that does hold merit. Travel allows you to experience things that you may never have had the chance to in your city or town. Sometimes those experiences resonate deep within you, inspiring you to change how you view your life. It certainly did that for me.
Loving My Home More
Whether you're traveling on the night train across the Caucasus or cruising across the Nile with travel insurance you've procured from InsuranceHero, at the end of it all, we all come home. Setting foot in your home after a long absence is a different experience every time, and I always find it to be edifying and interesting in a unique way. It's hard to describe, but one thing is for sure: absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.
Learning About The World
TV and the internet do give you a lot of world knowledge, but those forms of learning are limited. According to Nomadic Experiences, travel is a better teacher than any book. Which is often true, at least when it comes to learning about different cultures. Gaining academic knowledge about distant locations may be useful, but when it comes to gaining a genuine appreciation for those cultures, I believe that studying them always comes short in comparison to actually visiting those places.
Appreciating Humanity
Human beings are spread far and wide across the globe, from the tallest tops of the mountains to the deepest valleys and down to the sea. But there's one thing that links all of us, regardless of how we look: our culture. The Royal Society notes in a paper that culture is the quintessence of human nature since it spreads across all of humanity in different forms. To truly appreciate humankind, we must see its presence and its culture, witness how humanity has spread itself around the globe.
Socializing Across Borders
Traveling is a pastime that allows you to be social and to meet people that you would never have met otherwise. Whether you're staying at an inexpensive hostel or an all-inclusive resort, you will always find people that are fun and exciting to talk to. Those experiences will teach you to appreciate that everyone has a different way to see the world.
Epic and Breathtaking Moments
During your travels, epic moments sneak up on you when you least expect them to happen. They are one of the most amazing and life-changing experiences that could happen to a world traveler. These incredibly personal encounters often make you consider your existence as a human, and they help you realize how small you really are before the greatness of nature and the beauty of the world.
Moments like this affect everyone, regardless of philosophy, culture, or religion. Sometimes it hits you when you are overlooking a thousand-foot precipice, or when you are standing with your buried in the sand. The surprise is part of the experience; when you least expect it, reality will leave you feeling awestruck.
Seeing Life as a Gift
Being trapped in a negative and repetitive routine can suck all the joy out of someone's life. Travel helps you recover your passion for life, that burning desire to keep on living and experiencing what reality has to offer. There are many ways to find meaning in your life, and focusing on the journeys you still haven't undertaken is as good a way as any to stay motivated and excited for being alive. Think of all the people you haven't met, all the places you haven't been to. Those are the things that make the need to be alive so strong in travelers. When you are trekking through strange lands, it's very easy to see life as a precious gift.
To Boldly Go
Living in one place all your life and never leaving is both comfortable and safe. However, most humans are not designed for safety. The excessive familiar grows boring, and boredom is poison for a lot of our souls. Many of us have a burning need to get out and explore, to do more and be more than what we are now. Without new experiences, our psyche feels trapped; we become akin to an unfed tiger pacing within its cage - growling with stress and frustration and depression and anxiety. Now, travel isn't a panacea. It won't heal the soul of everyone who steps out of their land. But for some people, boldly going where they have never been before is exactly what they need to bring meaning into their lives. And if you never tried to travel, how can you know you are not one of those people?
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
