Travel: Making Sense of a Bigger Picture

“Once a year go someplace you have not been before,”says the Dalai Lama. Indeed, travel is mainly a journey to a new place, where you can enjoy nature and visit some famous places. However, if a person finds the deeper meaning, travel expands a person’s horizons. Travel causes a person to experience a new culture, food, rituals, and insights. Travel can change the way you think, act, judge, and your perspective of seeing the world.

Travel can make you feel grateful for what you have in your daily life. If you were born in a developed city or country and you have all the luxuries of life, yet you feel incomplete, travel can give you a sense of gratitude. Try to go to developing places where proper nutrition, drinkable water, and permanent shelter are extremely tough. Travel to such places will make you feel grateful, even for the fresh water running through your taps around the clock.

Travel brings you in contact with strangers you have never been with, yet they become your friends within a short period of time and you have a life-long connection with them. Every year people travel for an exchange program, a summer camp, volunteer assignment, and find people who were unknown to them before, but now they all have a conversation group on WhatsApp. They shared memorable moments, and often reunite later because of their friendship. This is what travel can bring you: a life-long connection and a strong bond of relationship.

Travel is an ideal way of learning a new language. You can either choose to learn just a few words or excel in eloquence. However, if one at least knows the way of greeting people in their language, the person is seen as more welcoming. This opens the doors to a large group of networks you can communicate with. Nelson Mandela once said “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

Last but not least, travel makes a person embrace change and accept diversified cultures. In the current globalizing world, it is extremely important to be culturally sensitive and appreciate the value of each other’s culture. Even if you live in a pluralistic society with different groups of people, it is just a comfort zone. However, travel is a great way to immerse yourself in completely diverse cultures that exist in this world. The different cultures you experience during travel make you a more tolerant and compassionate person.

Travel is a unique way of living life,experiencing the distinctive nature that God has created, and appreciating the difference of what the billions of people in this world possess. Therefore, everyone should travel and witness the unique blend of nature and what the world can show us. As Ibn Battuta said,“Traveling —it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.

Watching these pictures (below) makes me realize that how many moments, friendships and life-long lesson would I have missed, if I wouldn’t have traveled abroad for my studies.

Keep Traveling!