Great Reasons to Travel – My Top 10
We’ve been home for 77 straight days. That is the longest we’ve ever been at home without even a little side trip. I have to admit that I’m getting the travel bug, big time. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve really enjoyed this chance to slow down and get my business started. This blog has given me purpose, and a voice. But travel is in my spirit. So to feed my wandering soul, I’m sharing my list of 10 great reasons to travel.
1. Travel Shatters Stereotypes
To quote Mark Twain from his book, 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 cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” I couldn’t have said it better. I learn so much about people when I travel. Getting to know and love the people in a new place is part of the fun. We really enjoy chatting up our bartender, or taxi driver in a new city. I love hearing how people came to live in their city, and why they stay. I wish everyone would travel and be a student of humankind. It would end prejudice.
2. Travel Teaches Manners
Every country has their own vibe, and to make the most of your visit you should always do a little advance reading. You’ll want to know what phrases or gestures are offensive to a new culture. In general, I like to approach travel as I would being a guest in someone’s home for the first time. I behave in a grateful and humble way to everyone I meet because I feel like I am not only representing myself, I’m also an American. I may be the only American someone has ever encountered, and I want to leave people glad they’ve met one of us.
3. Travel Tastes So Good
People are proud to share the foods of their region. Most cities have some signature foods, drinks, or type of cuisine. Ice-cream is one of my favorite foods. Before I went to Italy for the first time, I remember how much I looked forward to trying their gelato. Italian foods, in general, are one of my very favorite cuisines so I knew I wouldn’t have a bad meal. But I was very much looking forward to their gelato. There are gelato stands and stores everywhere, and I made it my mission to try every single one I came across. (Only slightly joking.) That trip, we were introduced to limoncello. Every town claimed to have the best lemons, and therefore the best limoncello. I became obsessed with it’s fresh taste with a kick, and even learned how to make it myself. You can find my limoncello recipe here.
4. Travel Builds Confidence
Stepping off the plane, train, or automobile in a new place takes confidence. You’re in a new place that you know very little about. Each small success of figuring out how to get to your next destination, maybe order a meal in a new language, find out how to find the restaurant adds to your knowledge that you can take care of yourself. Sure, we can all take care of ourselves in our day to day living. But what do you do when your train connection is suddenly cancelled, and you have no idea that to get to another transfer you have to travel by bus to another town? Working through these little nafus build confidence and add to the richness of your experience.
5. Travel Illuminates the Values of a Culture
That day our train was cancelled, there had been a fire further up the line, closing that connection for an undetermined length of time. Everyone on the platform understood the announcement and ran off toward an alternate route. It was a madhouse of noise. In my feeble French, I kept asking what had happened, and if we should wait for the next train. I finally found someone with enough English to explain where we needed to go.
We followed a crowd of people, on foot, to a bus station about a mile from the train station. Our bus had more people on it than would ever be permitted in the U.S. We were quite literally crushed body to body. I’ve never stood full-body touching a stranger before. The bus navigated the city, stopping at every little stop along the way. Nobody got on because there simply was no room to squeeze in.
Then we came to a stop and the doors opened, as they had at every other stop. Except this time, the crowd of people pushed back even further to make room. Nobody complained, or groaned, as they would at home. A pair of strapping young men jumped off the bus, gingerly grabbed a very old woman and her walker, and placed her on the bus. Another man jumped into the doorway to give her his seat.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it. They were strangers, yet this community made room, where there didn’t seem to be even an inch, to help the old woman. When we stopped at the woman’s stop, the same boys helped her off, placed her upright, and placed her walker in front of her. I fell even more in love with the French that day.
6. Travel Increases Your Stamina
No matter how you plan it, you walk a lot when travelling. Just getting from the car to the airplane in an airport will go quite a ways toward meeting your steps goal for the day. I used to think that travel days were nothing but lazy days, but each time we travel, I log a ton of steps just getting from point A to point B. On long flight days, I try to stand and walk around the terminal before boarding, just to add to my activity and prevent blood clots from sitting too much.
We like to walk around in a new city, to get our bearings and to really see the place. One time we got lost in London, and ended up walking over 8 miles. In fact, this usually happens at least once in every trip we take, which leads me to the next tip.
7. Travel Diminishes Vanity
I’m one of those people who loves clothes and shoes. I have my own personal style, and my entire wardrobe is full of items that I feel good wearing. But when I travel, my cute shoes just aren’t comfortable enough. As much as I try to be fashionable, it’s simply not practical to take a bunch of different outfits for day and night, and the shoes to match. So I’ve learned how to pack light, quite often in just a carry-on, with mix and match clothes and only a couple of pairs of very comfortable shoes. Those comfy shoes are critical because you never know when you might end up walking a distance in those pointy toed kitten heels.
8. Travel Lightens Your Load
My travel bag contains only one moisturizer that I can use on my face, eyes, and feet. The same one for my entire body. I carry very little make-up, a couple of pairs of earrings, and a mix-n-match selection of clothes that serve double and triple duty. In fact, if it can’t be worn with every other item in my suitcase, it doesn’t come along. I still manage to cobble together cute outfits for fancy dinners, as well as kayaking excursions. At home, I have probably 10 coats, but the same one ends up with me every trip. It’s my all-purpose rain coat with a zip out lining and hood. From decades of trips with this one coat, I know that I don’t need these others. It was a lesson learned from travel. I really don’t need all of this stuff. So on those same lines…
9. Travel Teaches Economy
It’s easy to determine what is most important to you when you travel. I would rather enjoy a few very nice dinners out, than a cheap meal every night. So we typically will eat a couple of charcuterie and wine meals in our room during each vacation. This is a great way to stretch your budget for a splurge, and also to rest up after a very long day of sight seeing. We tend to live this same way at home, too. We’d rather eat at home most nights, and then go out for very nice dinners. We eat out infrequently, but when we do, we do it up right!
10. Travel Makes the Future Feel More Secure
After my divorce, I would worry about my financial future. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to afford to retire, and with what lifestyle. But travel really opened my eyes to the ways people live, and their happiness. I have visited so many places in the U.S., and abroad, that are very different than where I live. I remember looking around at someone’s very simple, but loving and warm home and thinking, I could live like this forever. Each time I visit somewhere new, I look at it with fresh eyes and imagine myself there long term. This practice allows me to see my future with unlimited possibility, and I no longer fear for my future. I know that I can be happy with very little, in many different environments, in many different cultures.
Without even mentioning the obvious benefits of beautiful scenery, and exciting venues, travel has brought me immense joy. There are many more great reasons to travel, but travelling makes me a better person, and that’s the best reason, of all. #sweetfreedomliving #nextlifebestlife
Do you love to travel? How has this changed you?
