Traveling seems to be the trendiest thing nowadays. There’s an endless stream of photos and posts featuring exotic destinations and fabulous outfits. With low-cost airlines booming and new modes of transportation connecting more locations, it’s become a little bit easier to take a vacation somewhere you’ve never been before.
But then there’s “traveling”. The kind that transports not only your body but also your mind and your soul to a whole new place. It’s the kind where you absorb every new experience, new feeling, even if it’s in a place you’ve already been to before. This kind of travel opens your heart to a world you’ve never noticed and connects you a little bit more to the people and the world around you.
The process of traveling can be somewhat chaotic. With all the planning, the packing and the moving, it can take a lot out of you, even if you are a bit of a packing expert. But, it gives you a lot more. It’s a way to renew your spirit.
No matter why you want to travel, here are five reasons why it’s good for your soul.
1. Traveling lets you explore out of your comfort zone
Our comfort zone is good for the now. Being in a place you already know makes life a little bit easier. However, there are many things to discover outside of your comfort zone that makes our crude human experience all the more magical. It can be very difficult for many people and can cause a lot of anxiety on the surface. When you breach that boundary, it helps strengthen your character. Meeting new people, experiencing new cultures, and finding your way around new places can provide you experiences you never would have earned.
2. Traveling exercises your patience
The rigors of daily life deplete your patience every single day. Dealing with coworkers or uncooperative children can push you to the brink of madness all the time.
Traveling is not a lot easier, but it forces you to practice patience at almost every turn. Many things will not go how you expected. It breaks up your routine and forces you to accept the moment. The patience you build while you travel will have profound effect when you return home. And in any case, patience is a great skill to learn.
3. Traveling gives you a new perspective
It’s easy to be caught up in your daily routine and accept things as fact. When you want to know about the world, you read things on the internet or hear about them on the news. You simply consume what is right in front of you without context. When you travel, you truly understand how big and how small the world is at the same time. How cultures can be so different but also share so many of the same values of love, compassion and trust.
When you put yourself out there, you begin to grasp how important it is to think beyond yourself and understand how other people live. You see how things affect you differently, and you learn new ways to cope with the world.
4. Traveling enriches history, even your own
History tells the story of how humanity as you know it was formed. Reading about it from books is interesting, but standing in the spot where history was made is an introspective experience.
There is something magical about being in a historical place, especially if it’s something you’ve read about. But being there allows you to get a real sense of what history is all about. At the same time, these experiences and emotions form lasting memories that will shape who you become.
Travel creates mostly fleeting, but sometimes lasting friendships. Yet, everything you experience when you travel becomes part of your personal history that steers the way you live your life.
5. Traveling teaches you to live in the moment
It’s a basic human flaw to worry about how good or bad the future will be. People often drown themselves in work to earn money for the future. Parents busy themselves with their children’s homework to ensure their kids have a good future. We all get so caught up with what we want to happen that we sometimes forget to enjoy the moment.
Traveling forces you to focus on what’s around you at that very moment. It throws that routine out the window and forces you make decisions on the fly. You’re not always 100% sure about where you’re going, and so you pay more attention to the roads and the streets and the paths you’re walking on, right now.
While looking to the future gives us something to work for, living in the moment lets us simply live.
And travel, it helps us see everything differently.
Photo Credit
Photo is Pexels Creative Commons
Guest Author Bio
Roger Timbrook
Roger is an Aussie happily trapped in Switzerland who travels whenever he can get the chance. You can find him on his travel blog.
Blog / Website: Expert World Travel
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