7 Reasons To Travel
The world is a big place full of untouched wonders and unique labyrinths – the biggest playground you have access to. If you want the most out of life the best way is to experience as much as you can. Personal experience is one of most crucial things you should collect and build – it’s the only thing you’ll have forever. As Buddhists say, everything external and materialistic is transient and non lasting – but experience is something you can hold and cherish forever. It adds to who you are, builds character and you’ll become more interesting. Travelling is not only very rewarding but a lot of fun – so here I will give you a list of why you should explore the world.
1. Experience Different Ways Of Life
The world is a lot larger than you can ever imagine. It is an amazing place filled with labyrinths of culture and different customs – and to fully appreciate your own culture it’s necessary to get a glimpse of how other people live their lives. From the hawker centres in Singapore to grand shopping malls in New York, a variety of experiences on how people live their everyday life will give you more understanding of people and allow you to be more of an open person. Thinking of all the different types of food you’ll get to try is enough to make your mouth water.
2. Get To Know Yourself and Personal Growth
As you explore the outside world, you fundamentally explore your internal world. These two are inherently linked – what is outside is sourced from within. How you view the world and your perceptions of it arise from your beliefs and values, and by seeing and experiencing different points of view of the world you also change the core beliefs in yourself for the better. You become more understanding, more open and view things from a higher perspective. No longer do you sweat the small stuff as you understand there are others worse off than you, and that what you see as a stressful problem is really a non issue.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
3. Meet Interesting People
There are over 7 billion people in the world and all of them have their own journey in life. When you go travelling you’re bound to meet new people – and some of them will be some of most interesting people you’ve ever met. You’ll learn, get ideas and build connections which will be very beneficial later in life. Wouldn’t it be great to have friends all over the world where you can go stay whenever you feel like leaving the country ? Who knows, you may even meet life long friends and even potential business partners.
4. Stimulates Curiosity and Creativity
Another reason to travel is that travelling allows you to explore new ways of thinking, new ideas, different values and beliefs and lets you look at the world from many different angles. One of the most important life skills is creativity – which is valuable to not only artists but people in all vocations and life paths – to help create and invent many useful things and essentially add to the world. The more you know the more you know you don’t know – so your curiosity expands as you learn and build up experiences and soon enough you’ll want to travel non-stop.
“Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” – Aldous Huxley
5. Less Stress and Higher Sense of Freedom
It’s a no question that abundant freedom reduces stress – the ability to do whatever you want. Without the baggage of routine and control, you’ll have more time to do what you want when you want to. Whether you’re travelling as a break from Uni or Work, or you have an on-line business which allows you to work any where in the world, having the ability to go anywhere you want without the worry of someone needing you takes a load of your mind. You’ll also learn ways to deal with loneliness and boredom waiting for planes, trains and buses whilst moving between countries and cities.
6. Become More Wise
When travelling you will have to deal with many different situations and will be forced to come up with ideas and solutions. You’ll learn how to read people, how to not get scammed, how to handle trouble, how to get discounts and you’ll have a better understanding on how to be street wise. Travelling forces you into many situations you wouldn’t normally be in when at home; losing your passport, needing a lift across the border, dealing with pick pockets etc. All these experiences will be ingrained into your subconscious. You’ll meet people who’ll teach you things you wouldn’t have thought of – such as a new way of opening a banana, how to get into clubs for free, keeping a photocopy of your passport, putting an ICE (In case of emergency) into your phone in case something happens to you and many similar neat tricks to keep you safe.
“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” – Samuel Johnson
7. Increased Financial Management Skills
No one likes being out of pocket – especially in another country. What you subconsciously train yourself to do is how to be economic and frugal – and learn how to delegate and prioritise how you spend your money. A skill which will be useful for the rest of your life – you’ll quickly learn this when you’re travelling to many different places and having to always be aware of your finance and what you’re next meal will be. You’ll also learn how to live on less than what you’re normally use to which is a crucial experience to help get you through hard times later in life.