There are plenty of things one can gain from exploring different places such as new friends, new experiences and new stories. When you start exploring new places, you get a better understanding of the people living there including their culture, history and background. Studies show that travelling can improve your overall health and enhance your creativity. Therefore, you need to take time out from your daily tasks, office responsibilities, hectic schedule and everyday pressures at least once in a year. Plan a tour to a new city with an open schedule and let life present you with the numerous opportunities that are waiting for you. If you need more convincing, here is a list of all the benefits of traveling.
1. Improves Social and Communication Skills One of the main benefits of travelling, especially to areas where your native language is not widely used, is that you learn how to communicate with all manner of different people. It could be communicating to find the way to your next destination or asking for the nearest restaurant.
2. Ensures Peace of Mind We all have stress and tension in our lives. Traveling forces us to temporarily disconnect from our normal routine and it helps us appreciate the people and things you have around. As per a famous saying “we never know what we have until we lose it.”
3. Helps you Get Original and Creative Thoughts It is believed that if someone gets out of their comfort zone, the mind gets more creative. To develop new neural connections that trigger original and creative thoughts, you must explore new places and break out of your daily lifestyles.
4. Broadens Your Horizons Travelling helps you connect with different people from different cultures, and this is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Meeting people from different cultures and societies will help you see issues and daily life from many different angles. See Also: Strange International Laws Every Tourist Should Know
5. Enhances your Tolerance for Uncertainty While travelling, you will find yourself stuck in situations where things don’t always go as planned. Such situations will help you learn to cope with the uncertainties in life.
6. Boosts Up your Confidence: Being in a place where you do not know anyone will assist you to gain confidence and presence of mind. You will develop the ability to cope with obstacles, which will make you a confident person and help you grow as a person.
7. Gets you Real-life Education Meeting different people from vast cultures and societies provides an education that is impossible to get in a traditional school, college or a university. There is no substitute for the real thing.
8. Creates Memories for Lifetime If you travel with friends and family members, traveling helps you build stronger bonds and make memories. You can also save memories of a lifetime by creating photo albums or sharing photos in social media.
9. Helps you Have Fun No matter how young or old you are, no matter your profession, there is always a time when the child in you wants to have some fun. When you travel, you do not care what you do at all and you can just break free from the norm.
10. Aids you Get to Know Yourself While traveling, you might find yourself stuck in situations you would not ordinary experience in your daily life.
Such a situation can help you understand yourself and how you react to such circumstances and prepare you for future similar situations. Although traveling offers many benefits, it also has some disadvantages if not planned carefully. If you are a patient and taking medication for a disease, do not forget to carry your medication. Keeping jet lag pills handy saves you from unnecessary discomfort.
Those susceptible to allergies should carry allergy medication. Plan your tour in advance, prepare a checklist to keep yourself healthy while traveling and pack important items before you travel. Travelling is good for the health so decide a place now and pack your bags. Remember, you only live once, so start traveling to different places and get some life-altering experiences.
Traveling Makes You Smarter Get used to picking up new words in a different language every time you travel and you will see improvements in your brain capacities, as Dan Roitman wrote in the Huffington Post. If only this, start getting familiar with travel jargon. Even more than “just” languages, traveling helps you learn about yourself. You might run into challenging situations where you need to be resourceful and think differently. I’m sure that you will develop a new set of skills that you didn’t suspect you had within you.
Traveling Improves Your Understanding Of Other Cultures Being more understanding and tolerant about a culture different than ours is part of being smarter, but I consider it as a benefits of traveling in itself. There is a quote by Saint Augustine, which goes “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page”. You could think of it this way: if you read what’s in the news or watch the news on TV and don’t question it, you’re missing on a ton of information.
You might think that it makes you smarter and more aware of the world, but it’s the exact opposite: it narrows your mind to a unique and biased perspective. Sure, you probably feel comfortable where you are, but that is just a fraction of the world! If you are a student, take advantage of programs such as Erasmus to get to know more people, experience and understand their culture. Dare traveling to regions you have a skeptical opinion about. I bet that you will change your mind and realize that everything is not so bad abroad.
Traveling Makes You More Interesting I have no doubt that you’re quite the conversationalist. That being said, including a few stories from abroad is likely to grant you even more attention. Mentioning something that most people aren’t familiar with or bring a new perspective is always a good way to shine in a social situation. Who do you think people want to listen to: the guy who spent his vacations at home doing some gardening and reading the newspaper, or the one who spent a week in Cuba, driving an old American car, swimming with dolphins and tasting deliciously spicy food? I know which story I want to hear about…
Traveling Expands Your (Real) Social Network Believe it or not, social networks was once like a real thing – in real life. Crazy, I know. Establishing connections and building a network abroad is one of the smartest things you can do in today’s world. It is sometimes hard to build long-lasting relationship with the people you meet abroad, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth meeting new people! Take this example: I’ve spent last year’s New Year’s Eve in Tanzania. I slept for two days at the flat of an Egyptian expat. I met him on Couchsurfing, once of the best ways to find cheap accommodation when you travel.
Now, a year later, this guy invites me to his wedding in Egypt! How amazing is that?! Some connections you make over your travels are surprisingly strong. 9. Traveling Creates Lifetime Memories My grandfather was an amazing story-teller and he used to tell me stories of the trips he made when he was younger. One of my favorites is how he tried eating with chopsticks in China for the first time. He regretted not traveling more as a young man. Years later, he still remembered everything in details: because traveling made a real impression on him. And it probably will on you too. No matter how insignificant it may seem, the fact that you’ve had an experience abroad, something that was out of the ordinary, creates a memory that you will remember for a long time.
