Traveling has a really REALLY big impact on a person. Like, huge. If you want to grow as a person, the absolute best thing to do is pack up your bag and travel. First time traveling alone can be nerve-wracking, but at the same time it is exciting and so rewarding because it takes a certain amount of determination and craze to set off on an adventure. Braving the unknown, dealing with logistical nightmares and seeing a different culture fundamentally change your outlook on life. Here’s my top ten reasons why:
1. You learn about yourself. When you travel, you experience way beyond what you could have ever learned in your societal bubble. From these experiences, you’ll learn to be content on your own, in groups, and how to interact with different kinds of people. Almost ubiquitously, you’ll end up in a bizarre, completely unforeseeable leadership capacity. Who are these people and why do they trust you? No idea! But you’re the only who can help, so don’t let them down! You’ll also be an expert to someone on something you only recently have come to know anything about. And at the end of it all, you will be much more informed about who you are and what makes you happy.
2. You value experience more than stuff. Coming home after your first big adventure is a strange thing. You come home, you look at all your stuff, and you wonder why you have so much. Why does anybody have so much? After the onslaught of novelty, fun and growth, you start to view your possessions very differently. A once one of the coolest things imaginable, a wall-mounted big screen TV just isn’t worth the $1500 anymore… Now, it’s just become an expensive wall decoration and you think about how many experiences, insights, memories, and friends you could have with $1500. The answer is a lot!
3. You learn how to talk to anyone. Once upon a time, you used to talk the same way to everyone. Now, you can have meaningful conversations with politicians, musicians, bums and bankers. When you travel, you learn to face the language barrier and sometimes even have to try to communicate with people that don’t speak your language. You start to adapt to other people’s ways of communicating (the language, style and gestures). You will learn to talk to people with THEIR vocabulary, paradigms, and outlook. That is an incredible ability that this world really needs more of.
4. You will become smarter and more innovative. Problems will arise and you will have to deal with them. It will suck, but you will persevere, and the pain will make the victory so much sweeter! Your ability to solve similar problems will not only get better, but your whole problem-solving skills and process will change for the better too. You will be amazed at how quickly and easily you will be able to solve a large breadth of problems after some adventures!
5. You will learn that it is self-respect to accept help. Sometimes you are in a good position to help yourself and sometimes you are not. It is difficult for many to recognize when they are not, and to recognize that it isn’t shameful to ask for help. Although you will become an innovator extraordinaire, sometimes you don’t have the expertise or resources necessary. You will become adept–gracefully and without shame–at requesting and accepting help from others.
6. You will become less judgmental and more accepting. A hallmark of being well-traveled is a high amount of empathy and being very careful to be critical of anything. You’ll get to see new and interesting things. You’ll not only see people doing very very different things than you could have imagined, but it’ll influence you to think a little differently too. At times this could make you uncomfortable or sometimes you’ll surprise yourself at how comfortable you are with embracing cultural differences. At the end of each travel experience, you really do become less judgmental and more accepting.
7. You value the things that actually bring you meaning and joy. Traveling has made me see outside of my societal bubble and realize that making money and having a high-position job means nothing to me. What really brings me true joy and meaning to my life is exploring new places and that amazing zest that makes me so excited to wake up to see the sunrise in a whole new city and country. By traveling, I came to realize that I was born to be a nomad. I am literally the happiest when I am on the road with a backpack full of essentials, rather than an apartment full of cool gadgets and closet full of expensive designer clothes.
8. Problem? What problem? Small logistical problems become huge problems when there is a language barrier. When you travel, especially on your own, you will always be unprepared for something. Being back home, every first world problem is a huge problem. You often hear people complain about their “problems,” like how they forgot about their coffee and now it’s cold or how they want to go see a movie, but they can’t because they’re working. Honey, please.
When you’re on your own you learn to swallow your pride and tackle the problem, even when you’re drenched with emotions and have to resort to dramatic epic waving of hands as part of your communication methods… Not to mention testing the patience of many unfortunate clerks, tellers, and strangers that are kind and naive enough to attempt helping you, despite your completely hopeless command of the language.
9. You will realize that people are amazing. You will need to trust people, maybe a lot more than you should. You will be vulnerable to people. It’s scary because you put complete trust in strangers, but you will discover something amazing: people are amazing. People are helpful, they make sacrifices and they genuinely want to see you succeed at whatever it is you happen to be doing! There is a viscous lie I often hear that people are selfish and mean. Whenever I hear this, I immediately know that whomever said this has never traveled.
10. You will see your life with a new perspective. You will have an amazing opportunity to examine your life and what you want out of it. You will have seen many different lives and livelihoods. Your new perspective will give you opportunity to decide who you want to be. What are your priorities? What do you enjoy? What doesn’t deserve your time anymore? Perhaps the most important effect of traveling, self realization and reflection will enormously accelerate your growth as a person.
Be more interesting and understanding. Book that flight to the one place you’ve always wanted to visit and become a better person through traveling.
xoxo,
Jinny~