I am putting out a request to everyone and it goes like this:
Go travel.
Go anywhere. To a beach, on a cruise, to a foreign city. Just get moving. I know that sometimes travelling isn’t the most pragmatic idea. It’s expensive, time-consuming, takes you away from your house and your job. But go anyway; those things will be there when you get back.
I know travelling might even be a little scary at first. What if something bad happens for crying out loud? What if you hate it? It’s OK, most people get through just fine. Plus you’ll never know unless you try it.
So just go.
Still not convinced?
OK.
Go travel because travelling is addictive. And just like other things that are addictive you always want more and you push the envelope a little more each time you do it. All you have to do is start breaking that comfort zone and you might soon find that you are even considering a trip to a place you were sure you’d hate: Miami, Toronto, Paris, Kabul.
But what if you have a horrible time?
Well, that’s when you realize that travel is a sneaky little fucker. It’s been around a lot longer than you, so it’s smarter than you. Because either you have a relaxing time, or you don’t. And everything goes wrong and you’re dirty and itchy and scratch a lot and you have the shits. Or you get your wallet stolen or overcharged for olives or a cab ride. Or you might stumble onto a nude beach covered in leaping, dancing, shameless human manatees, who (for some universal and ironic reason) just adore volleyball.
And your trip is a nightmare.
But it’s still great.
Because then it becomes an adventure. And while adventures might not be very fun while you’re having them, they give you stories you’ll tell for a lifetime. And that’s even better.
So either way, go travel.
Go travel because you get to meet new people. Yep, even those we are so sure we know all about. Those guys over there are snotty, and those others are all terrorists, and these just want to get across a border, and these are cheeseburger-obsessed gun nuts.
But actually, all those people want to smile at you, meet you, talk to you, and help you. This is because you are guests in their country, and most of the people in other places treat their guests better than they treat themselves. But you don’t learn that until you travel somewhere. And that can be scary, because once you go to a place you thought you’d hate, filled with a bunch of people you thought you knew, you might come back thinking: well that wasn’t so bad.
And that’s when you learn that travel is the world’s most effective stereotype assassin.
So, once again, go travel. There’s simply no drawback. You get to take an adventure and get to meet new people. You get to see old things that are new to you. You get to learn about a new culture, get to eat new cuisine, and get to botch words in another language.
And you get to come home smarter than you were before you left.
