Although many treat travel as an adventure to explore a new location or escape everyday life, travel can be used to expand your personal views, learn new life skills, meet new people and try being pushed out of your comfort zone.
Throughout my travels, I’ve used every city I have explored as a new way to broaden my horizons. Whether trying new foods, learning small words or phrases of a country’s native language or meeting new people, it has allowed me to experience the culture hands-on, something a television program or book could never do justice to.
Interacting with people who differ from those you usually interact with can broaden your cultural perspectives.
For example, seeing how people differ from you, both in beliefs and cultural differences, can provide a new perspective that you would not have in everyday life. This perspective can be implemented into your daily life; maybe it adds a new perspective on how fortunate you are or what you take for granted. It can also teach you skills to adapt into your everyday life.
These interactions with new people while traveling can create life-long friendships. Having friends worldwide is one of the extraordinary opportunities that travel provides you.
In Portugal, my mom and I made new friends while doing a bike tour around Porto. This friendship brought us new companions to share dinner with and sightsee around the city.
Meeting up with people can also provide a tool to pick their brains on places they have visited. Maybe they saw a fantastic monument or museum that you must visit, or possibly they can help you steer clear of a popular tourist trap.
Although these friendships can be made stateside, it is even more remarkable when they are created in a new foreign country, with a large diversity of people.
Courtesy of Jack Embery
Falkirk, Scotland, is home to the “Kelpies” sculpture, a 98-foot depiction of horses.
Everyone has learned some knowledge about famous monuments and people, but when you experience these historical creations with your own eyes, it ultimately provides an invaluable insight into history. Seeing the “Mona Lisa,” Michelango’s “David,” the Eiffel Tower or the beaches of Normandy can create a new understanding of history outside the realm of a classroom, textbook or online article.
When a traveler gets to experience these riches of history, it opens up understanding and appreciation for past times.
Many people, including myself, get caught up in the comforts of familiar locations and activities, although traveling offers a unique opportunity to be pushed out of those comfort zones.
While traveling, you can dive deeper into other cultures, trying new unique dishes like steak tartare in France or francesinha in Portugal. Ultimately, these experiences give you a more rounded cultural exposure to worldly things.
You can take these sophisticated experiences with you to look back on and reflect on, or share with other people, helping expand your knowledge of different cultures as well.
Finally, it’s important to put your prejudices aside while traveling. Although different countries may do things that are polar opposites to what you are accustomed to, it does not make their way wrong, but rather different.
Like anything a person does, it takes time for them to be comfortable with it. So, try new dishes, experience new things, travel back in time through monuments and museums, and have a safe and enjoyable time. Get out, travel and explore!
Jack Embery