How Travel Makes You A Better Person

People develop the travel bug for a variety of reasons. Some of us have a curiosity about the natural world and want to “climb every mountain,” as it were. Some people have a love of history, and want to see ancient structures and places where the giants of yore once stood. Some of us simply have a desire to meet different people and engage with a variety of cultures.

For some of us it’s all of the above!

But one thing is certain: traveling makes you a better person. Here are a few ways travel makes the awesome you that you already are even better!

1. Confidence

There’s nothing like the experience of stepping off a plane fresh from your home country and plunging into the chaos of a huge city where you know nobody and don’t speak the language. Or walking across a wind-whipped wooden bridge high in the trees of a South American jungle. Or snorkeling with sharks off the Great Barrier Reef. There’s nothing like these kinds of experiences for building confidence!

2. Sociability

Traveling by definition takes us out of our comfort zone, and in doing so it takes us out of our usual social circles. As you travel the world you are literally “out there,” not ensconced in your little bubble of work or school, not surrounded by the same old people you already know – you’re forced to be more social and this makes you better at being social! Meeting new people is something you do every day while you travel, and it changes you over the long term, if you let it, into a more social, more easily engaged person even after you return home.

3. Adaptability

Even the most meticulous planner of a traveler is bound to encounter times when things go awry – it’s just the nature of the beast: you’ll miss a train, a museum will be closed the day you try to go, something will be sold out, your hostel will lose your reservation. The savvy traveler after a time is able to take these kinds of setbacks in stride and learns to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances of the world. Travel makes you a problem-solver out of necessity!

4. Education

Travel opens our eyes to a variety of sights, sounds, smells and tastes, of course. But what often goes unsaid about travel is what we learn along the way. Of course you pick up tons of knowledge about the history of places you visit, the science of the land and sea and how they came to be the way they are, and the biology of the animals living in them. But perhaps more importantly you also learn about the lives of a wider variety of humans than you could ever have imagined if you had never left your couch.

When we travel we learn how much we really have and how little others have.

We learn how different we all are – and how much we are all the same.

We gain an education not only in history, science and culture – we gain an education in humanity.

And that makes us all better off for having gone.

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