Travel More
Impacts: Mind, Community
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain
You might this suggestion is a little hypocritical because I say things like burn less, travel light and travel more with almost the same breath. Traveling more definitely comes at a price but it can also be tremendously rewarding. So maybe the right way to think of it is, when you travel, make it count.
When you travel to other places, especially places foreign to you, it exposes you to new ideas, new challenges, and opens your eyes to the extreme diversity of the human race and the world we live.
Europeans might be the luckiest people in the world in this regard. Their proximity to each other and their diversity has its draw backs but it definitely helps them appreciate each other in a way many Americans don’t experience. In America cultural diversity is one of our strengths but we have few opportunities to truly experience and appreciate other cultures fully. Europeans have an opportunity to experience different cultures, languages, neighboring governments all in a relatively small region.
Traveling frees you because it can change the way you think about other people. This new understanding follows you home and can help make you a better community member because you’ll see more commonalities than differences in the people around you.
Take Action
- Begin saving money now for travel.
- Schedule a trip to a new place and plan to stay a while. World-wind trips often seem like a better deal but seeing more places in a shorter period of time may only leave you tired and overwhelmed. Pick a new place each year.
