First off I hate the word “leisure traveling”, I look at leisure traveling as the act of traveling somewhere where you have the utmost comfortability with your surroundings and in essence aren’t exactly growing yourself through the interjection of culture.
I was asked a question a while back, “why do you make it a point to travel so much to odd destinations” and almost like a channeled response I responded vehemently “why not”? Some people look at traveling and base one keyword to describe their travels and thats “purpose” every place they go to has to serve some form of purpose . Case in point for an individual to go to China, they need to be either conducting business in China or they need to know somebody in China.
I think this is both narrow minded and also can lead to a very jaded view of society as a whole. Originally I thought this exactly way. I didn’t like traveling, it always seemed like a hassle and also was an expensive hobby that didn’t reap much in terms of ROI or return on investment. Over the last 4 years I changed my thinking mainly due to both my surroundings and having a close friend who put a great emphasis on travel to which I was influenced to be different and in essence change my views altogether.
As I write this post, I can’t but recall some of the most happiest memories of my life came from to traveling to destinations without having much of any purpose. About 3 years ago, while backpacking through Northern Europe and in Berlin Germany, I was influenced by some crazy Aussies to go up to Guttenberg Sweden for no real purpose but to see what exactly was in Guttenberg Sweden.
To stay on topic with this post, what I have learned from traveling is more or less how necessary traveling is to our very existence as citizens of earth and also to our continued growth as individuals.
(A) Problem Solving: American cultural in general has made some people feel way to comfortable and in a sense has sprouted an inner self-righteousness which is both dirty and disgusting. This “our country is the best why should we ever leave” motto has sparked a great amount of irritation when dealing with these narrow minded souls.
When you travel to far away places though, you are consistently posed problems such as where are am I going to sleep, how am I going to find directions to Mt Kota Kin Balu, and more? These new found problem solving skills can now be later attributed to other areas of life once you get back other than traveling.
(B) Cultural Understanding: You are trying to sell somebody who is originally from Vietnam the opportunity of working with you in the business world. How do you strike up narratives that you have in common? Travel helps solve this problem even if you have never been to Vietnam. When you travel to distant countries you are forced to figure out ways to communicate and emphasize with people who are very different than you. We are forced to learn and embrace people from cultures that are new to us.
(C) Ignorance Destruction: I am sure you agree that we are by products of our surroundings and the media. We base a lot of our belief systems on the articles we read and the things people tell us. This is really bad, to draw these random conclusions on subjects we know absolutely nothing about from authors who also know absolutely nothing about those subjects to.
An example of this was when I went into Israel, I read an article that stated that most Bendouin Indian hate travelers and will kill you on contact and should be looked upon as dangerous. If I never would have went to Israel, I would still have this conviction that all Bendouins hate americans and are savages. Turns out the Bendouins I met like Hookah, Basketball, Pot, and some other stuff that I kind of like to. In essence, we have things in common.
You have to base your beliefs on experience rather than speculation.
I continue to tell people about traveling adventures that I have and their most honest responses are “I wish I could travel more but I don’t have the time” or ” I wish I could travel more but I can’t afford it”.
Traveling is an investment in yourself, it is an investment in your growth and it is an investment that will payoff greater dividends that most investments you will make in your life. Its a necessity rather than a luxury.
I hope after reading this you consider taking a trip to a place you normally would never have a reason in going to, except now you do.
