Oh my gosh! This past weekend was absolutely PACKED for me! From attending a wedding, making brunch for the family, taking engagement photos for my niece and her fiancé… boy, what didn’t I do?! It was positively crazy! I imagine many of you have the same issues. How do you find time to do everything you’d like to do, and why should travel be on the list with all your other important tasks? To help answer that question I’d like to present you with 5 ways travel can improve your life. Hopefully after you’ve read these, you’ll see why travel is so important and be booking your next trip in no time!
1. Rest and Relaxation– I imagine this is the top of the list for almost everyone. In this day and age of constant communication, internet distractions, and 50-60 hour work weeks, it might be the only way to shut off and wind down. I know when my husband and I go somewhere where no one knows our names and our bosses can only reach us intermittently (if at all), the constant knot in my stomach from things to do just dissolves away instantly. All that lack of stress can also be good for your health- studies have linked decreasing stress to benefits in conditions such as heart health (Journal of the American Medical Association article) and depression (Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin article), so call it a prescription and book that trip!
2. Changes to Your Way of Thinking– Traveling, especially to places with unfamiliar cultures, gives us a new perspective because we are not going about our daily routine. We might become more acutely aware of our surroundings because it’s not something we typically see. We might also notice people going about their daily lives who seem perfectly content, if not happy, even though they might appear to have less than we do. For some people, this can be eye-opening and life-changing.
3. Education– There is no better way to educate yourself on the history of a place than to be there and experience it firsthand. It gives a whole new perspective on history to experience that place with all your senses and not just read about it in a textbook. My father used to say that he never enjoyed history in school and learned far more traveling with his children to historical locations that we wanted to see. Speaking to people who have personal connections to a place and perhaps even firsthand knowledge of the events that happened there has a way of bringing that history to life. That’s something that you certainly can’t get from a textbook.
4. Connections with Other Cultures– Meeting people of a different culture can be intimidating at first, but once you get beyond the fact they might not speak your language, look like you do, or eat the same foods, etcetera, you begin to realize that they really just want the same things out of life that you do. It is usually difficult for most people after they’ve experienced a culture to have any prejudice towards those people. Once you have shared experiences with them and connected with them on a personal level, it is hard to see them as anything other than fellow human beings. You may find that you don’t care for some aspect of their culture, but usually experiencing it will allow you to put aside any misconceptions and stereotypes you might believe and develop a relationship with them. Perhaps Mark Twain said it best when he wrote in The Innocents Abroad:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s life.”
-Mark Twain, “The Innocents Abroad“
5. Finding Your Ancestral Roots- This is something that I believe will gradually increase now that ancestral DNA testing is becoming more commonplace. With the ability to determine your ancestral heritage, many people yearn for a connection with the culture from which they came. Many locations are beginning to offer assistance to those who wish to research their family genealogy within their country. Ireland, for example, has an Irish Family History Centre in Dublin where they can assist people of Irish heritage in finding information about their ancestors. Now that people have greater resources with which to research their ancestry, those willing to make the effort may find that they can develop a strong bond with another culture.
These are just a few of the many benefits of travel. Travel can truly be life-changing and can influence our personalities in ways we may never have anticipated. Hopefully at least one of these stood out for you and made you realize why travel should become more of a priority in your life. What are your motivations for travel, perhaps it’s something that’s not on this list? I’d like to include more of these types of lists in my blog, so please- leave me your comments and perhaps I’ll include it on my next one!
Thanks again for visiting and be sure to come back next week when I begin my discussion on Morocco! I can’t wait to share more of my travel stories with you!
Thanks Shelley, enjoyed your thoughts. I THINK also helps people in other countries to get acquainted with people from USA and hopefully with a positive experience it opens doors of peace as well.
Thank you so much Kathy! I sincerely hope it helps people in other countries get a good impression of people here in the US too. I’d love to become an “Ambassador” of peace and goodwill between all nations. One intent I had with this blog was actually to connect with people worldwide and create a kind of community so hopefully that will happen.
With thanks! Valuable information!
sound like you know what you?re talking about! Thanks