Everyone wants to travel the world when they’re young, and for good reason. Whether it’s moving to a new state or exploring a different country, traveling will always have a positive effect on a person’s life and can make you a better person. Here’s why:
- You appreciate different types of people. Different countries have different cultures (duh). The music is different, the styles are different. The lifestyles, the cooking, the ethnicities are all different. When you’ve seen and interacted with so many different types of people, you learn to appreciate and become much more tolerant o those who are different from you.
- You develop survival skills. This may seem silly, but when you’re is forced to find your own bus, find a place to sleep when a flight gets cancelled, or learn a new language to find the bathroom, you develop survival skills that you wouldn’t otherwise develop.
- You develop a love for the arts. When you travel outside the United States, you encounter history in art, architecture, and beyond. Buildings are grander, sculpture is everywhere, clothing is brighter, music is fancier… you get the hint.
- You develop a love for nature.There are places in this world where nature flourishes. Mountains are picturesque, jungles are vibrant, fields are green, stars are exposed, trees are tall, and oceans are alive. You’ll marvel at just how incredible our planet is.
- You believe in humanity. When traveling, it seems as though people are way kinder than the nightly news would have you believe. They’ll offer you directions or allow you to take part in their cultural traditions and it’s an amazing gift to be given. If you never travel other parts of the world, you never meet these people.
- You develop a love for learning. When you’re in a new place, you’re learning all of the time, and because of it, you’ll develop an insatiable curiosity for the world around you.
- You learn to love adventure. A boring life doesn’t suit you anymore. You need confusion and bustle. You seek challenge and action, and you need to explore and seek out your interests in a hands-on way. You’ve become someone to talk to at a party.
- You become bilingual.Emerging yourself into a new culture almost always results in learning a new language, at least conversationally, and that’s awesome.
- You gain perspective. When you venture outside of the Western world, you realize that this world is more than just the Internet and Black Friday sales. There are people who are hungry, who lack clean water and who don’t have access to an education. When you experience that life through their eyes, you gain some perspective on what’s important.
- You create a cycle of travel. You’ll have kids someday, or maybe just nephews or nieces. There’s no better way to make the world a better place than to share your love and experience of travel to a child. That child will then know that travel is possible and that this world is a beautiful place to explore.
