Why Should You Travel The World?
- Discovering your inner self-confidence
So you kiss your folk’s goodbye, you board your plane and settle in for the long journey ahead. The plane finally lands at your final destination and you take that first step off the plane and onto foreign terrain – scary? Only at first. Most travellers – wherever they are in the world – acclimatise much quicker than they had originally anticipated, and a lot of that is to do with their own self-confidence. Sometimes when we humans are pushed out of our comfort zones, the only thing we can do is sink or swim. Go and see the sights, make friends with the locals, engage with other fellow travellers and put yourself out there. Make yourself proud.
- Learning that there are other ways to live
Growing up in the western world you are almost spoon-fed from birth that the routine journey from school to university, university to a job and a job to settling down is the only correct way to live. WRONG. If travelling has taught me anything, it’s that there is no right or wrong way of living, it’s purely up to you and how you want to live. Simple. Many travellers discover ways of living that they’d never even considered before and realise that it’s ok to wake up one day and decide to quit the hectic rat race for a slower pace of life, perhaps closer to nature. See the world and decide for yourself – how do YOU want to live your life? The possibilities are endless.
- Learning to live in the now
If travelling gifts you anything – it gifts you the ability to live in the moment. To truly live in a moment and be present in that moment and everything else that you do. Travelling opens up a world of adventures, whether that be through food, meeting new people, experiencing things out of your comfort zone or merely just enjoying being in a new and different surrounding. It’s very easy in your day to day life to forget the smaller things that truly matter, whereas when you’re travelling, you finally allow yourself to stop and smell the roses (or hibiscus flowers, depending on where you are of course…). Learn to stop, breathe, and appreciate. Make every opportunity count.
- Meeting new people
You will make friends in every country you visit, fact. When I went travelling around Asia, I was so taken aback by how lovely and accommodating everyone was. People genuinely want to know everything about you – where you’ve come from and where you’re going. Locals love to hear why you chose their country to come and visit and what you love most about staying there. Alongside the welcoming locals are the very obvious, other travellers. Whether you meet them in hostels, on the beach or during a tour – you pick up so many likeminded travellers who want nothing more than to get to know you and share with you their experiences during their travels. I still to this day have roughly 60 facebook friends who I met whilst travelling the world, some who are still doing just that. Open yourself up and meet new people, you’ll be thankful that you did.
- Expanding your horizon
Many people have certain prejudices against different races, countries and other ways of living; simply because they lack understanding. Travelling gifts you the ability to really understand and get involved in another way of life; opening the eyes of even the most closed minded individual. When you explore another country and are welcomed into their culture and daily ways of life, it is very hard not to become humbled by the ways in which these people live. Take all the opportunities presented to you to immerse yourself into these cultures and customs and truly understand the people within these communities. Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his footsteps and when it comes to travelling, this couldn’t be truer. Different doesn’t necessarily mean wrong, take the time to learn from others, however different they may be from you.
Written by Saffron Bowdler
Twitter: @saffronb94
