Travel isn’t always a luxury, sometimes it’s a necessity. Sometimes you just have to get away and that can be a good thing! Here are 5 reasons to be addicted to travel.
1. It makes you a better person
So much about traveling is putting yourself into new and unfamiliar situations and outside our comfort zones. New countries, new languages, new cultures, new foods. Being outside your comfort zone is a great place to be because it forces you to do things you may not have known you could do.
Maybe you’re shy. Traveling often forces you to talk to strangers and to ask for help when you would never have talked to a stranger at home. Maybe you don’t like being along. Traveling to a new a beautiful place solo you can learn how much you enjoy your own company. We are often stronger and braver than we give ourselves credit for. Traveling is a great way to help us learn and experience this.
2. It can save the world
Traveling helps you to see that we are all the same. People are people, no matter where you travel to. We all have the same desires to be happy, to feel safe and loved.
There is so much bad news and stereotypes out there about every country and people yet actually traveling to a different country is very different than what you read or hear about it. Talking to locals, eating new foods, experiencing new cultures gives you a better understanding of the world. Having a better understanding of the world through experience, not through news, allows you to act in ways that connect the people of the world rather than divide.
3. Find out what you really need
Traveling can help you discover what it is you really need, what is it you really want, and what is just weighing you down. Daily lives at home are filled with routine, social expectations, and work obligations. It’s easy to get caught up in what is ‘normal’ in these routine lives. Yet so much of what seems normal are not needs.
For example, do you really need 7 pairs of jeans, the latest technology gadget, and 500 television channels? Traveling forces you to simplify to pack only what you really need, to research and make conscious decisions about how you are going to spend your time and money. Taking these skills you practice when you travel back with you into your routine lives can help you live a simpler, more filling live.
4. Learn things you can’t learn about from a book or the internet
It’s true. There are things you can’t learn from the internet. It doesn’t matter how much you know about carrots, unless you’ve held a carrot, smelled a carrot and tasted a carrot, you don’t really know what a carrot is like.
This is the same with travel. There are so many things that just can’t be learned unless you experience them. What does the air in Paris smell like? What does pizza in Italy taste like? What does New York City feel like?
5. It’s fun and fun is good for you
Traveling is fun and fun is good! Even when it’s hard it can be fun. There are so adventures to be had, so much amazing food to eat, so many interesting people to meet, so many languages to hear and so many cultures to experience, you could travel for years and constantly have new and fun experiences.
Having fun makes you happy and happiness is good for your heath. Make travel part of your health and happiness. Plan it into your budget as a necessity, rather than an option. You don’t need to travel far and there are plenty of ways to travel on the cheap.
So, where are you traveling to next?
