As a young kid, I was moved around a fair bit. I was born in Canada, and my family moved to the Netherlands due to my dad's job. At the age of 5, I was moved to a completely different country and thrown into a completely different culture than the one I had grown up in. However, only being 5, I didn't really pay much attention and just enjoyed going to school and playing with kids my own age. However, as I grew up in the Netherlands, I started to appreciate the lifestyle that I had been given due to my dad's job. We traveled CONSTANTLY since most places in Europe were only a day's drive away. By the time I was 12, I had visited more European countries than most people get to see in a lifetime, and it really changed my outlook on life. However, because of all this traveling, I caught what is known as the "travel bug," and I now feel the need to leave the country I'm living in and go out and explore the world every few years.
When I moved to Texas in the sixth grade, I was astonished by the odd questions I would get about living in Europe, and even more surprised, even horrified, when I found out that some people didn't have passports and had never traveled outside of Texas their entire lives. Growing up in the environment that I did at an international school where people come and go every single year, leaving home and traveling all over the world was pretty commonplace, a concept that I now realize I was very privileged to find normal.
As I've grown up and traveled to more places all over the world, I think that traveling is one of the most important things a person can do in their life. It can be expensive and even scary, but leaving home to explore the world we inhabit can be completely awe-inspiring and life-changing. Traveling teaches us to adapt to different surroundings, to push ourselves in ways we may have never thought possible before. In traveling, you are confronted with different experiences that you embrace, learning things about yourself that even you didn't know.
Not into weird food? Travel and you might find that you actually really like escargot, tasty little snails doused in delicious garlic butter sauce. Not one for organized religion? Travel to Asia and you might find that Buddhism speaks to you on a different level than any other religion you've heard of before. Terrified of heights? Try bungee jumping in South Africa, and maybe that tall office building you work in won't seem quite as scary anymore.
Traveling to places that you aren't familiar with forces you to change, to develop and look at life in a different way, a better way. You start to appreciate the intricacies of the world that we live in, start to understand how different cultures live and how they interact with each other. Maybe you'll find that you're tired of the place you've lived in all your life, and you're ready to move halfway across the world and start a completely new life, as scary and exciting as that may be. Travel teaches us about ourselves and about the world around us like no other thing can.
So grab your passport and jump on a plane. I promise you won't regret it.
