Travel has a deep impact on my life. It’s not just about reconnecting with family and friends, and visiting the sites, it’s also about immersing myself in a different way of living, even for just a short while. It gives me more than just a new experience and some great pictures to take home. It gives me new possibilities. Travel serves as a catalyst for personal growth in my life.
Travel Changes Me In Small Ways
There are the simple changes and the more profound. Who hasn’t visited Paris and not returned with a new love of scarves and cheese? Touring Hungary, impressed upon me the joy of sunflower fields and red wine. Sightseeing in Venice highlighted the delight of seeing the sun shining off the water and through coloured glassware. Whether it’s centuries old castles in Ireland, or sandy beaches in Crete, travelling to new places exposes me to new foods, fashions and sights. When I’m home again, I add a new recipe or a scarf to my life. These are the small changes.
Travel Provides Worlds Created Differently
The deeper change comes from the way life is organized differently and the ideas that drive a place. When I’m a visitor, I’m forced to live a different way, by an alternate set of rules. I get to experience what it’s like. And, it’s not just one different thing, it’s a whole world created differently! Everything from the way bathrooms are organized in England, to the way they deal with garbage day in Venice.
We all have the same needs as people but there are so many ways to meet those needs. Until I’m immersed in it, I don’t realize that it’s possible to do things a different way, because I’ve never experienced it. Travel allows me to experience alternate ideas and to come back with new possibilities for my own life, and expanded tolerance and understanding of the way other people live. It encourages me to grow.
Travel Near Or Far?
If travel is for providing some much needed shaking out of the cobwebs of my everyday life, does it really matter where I go? Probably not. Sure, the further away from home I travel the more differences I’ll be exposed to, but even a weekend trip to another city, or a lakeside cottage, can provide me with enough change to open my mind to new possibilities. I think it’s time to shake things up and book a trip.
Retired, And Now What? 