Top Reasons to Travel
It is not secret I like to travel. These are my 6 reasons.
Santorini, Greece // 2021
I am reading this book called “Bright-Sided“ written by Barbara Ehrenreich. In the book, she mentions that breast cancer survivors are happy that got cancer because they realize the value of life. They start living it the way they want. As a survivor, they realize what is important and what is not. That how you live your life and who you live it with is more valuable than work, everyday problems, etc. They see it as a new beginning of their life. I follow this woman on Instagram who got sepsis when she was pregnant. As consequence, she lost her baby. Although she is not happy that she lost her baby, she took away a huge life lesson and started living a more intentional lifestyle, she started doing the things on her bucket list and not caring what others think about her.
My question is why do you have to wait until you have an illness or a near-death experience before you start living the life you want? If you died tomorrow would you have completed anything on your bucket list? It is not that difficult to incorporate a lifestyle you want with the lifestyle you have now. You do not have to work more, stop school, etc. You just have to want it enough and think outside the box.
Travel heals you. I have had many traumas in my life. The one I struggled to overcome the most was losing my virginity to rape. The number of times I would cry, break down, self destruct, are countless. Everybody has traumas and you are lying to yourself if you say you do not. When you do not take time to work through them, they become a ball and chain in everything you do. Relationships you have with people, the addictions that you have in your life. There is no magic switch to make traumas go away. I wish there was.
Travel has freed me from many traumas in many different aspects. You can be whoever you want, no baggage. You meet many like-minded people and have so many interesting, deep conversations. After my rape I was embarrassed, humiliated and ashamed, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it. When travelling however there is this safe space where you can tell anyone anything and never have to worry about seeing them again. I unloaded my baggage on many strangers and oddly enough the more I talked about what was weighing me down the easier it became to breathe again. Through trauma dumping I formed bonds with people who I now call my friends.
It makes you prioritize what is important in life. Before every solo trip, I ask around 20-30 people if they would like to come along. Some people say yes but never follow through. Some people use work as an excuse, others use money. I will tell people I can meet in whatever country they would like and yet my friends, my coworkers, my clients will all say no. I think money is a bad excuse. The problem is in my town, maybe everywhere I am not sure, is that people spend money on unnecessary things. I asked someone to come to Central America with me for a few weeks and their response was:
“I would, but I want a Rolex.”
It is proven that if you buy a material item the dopamine rush (the drug in your brain that makes you happy and excited) will only release for 3 weeks after seeing that item. He chose a $10 000 watch over two weeks in Central America that will cost him 1/5 of the watch. What that means exactly is he chose 3 weeks of happiness over a lifetime of re-living great memories he would have made. I have never met someone who has ever regretted travelling.
You learn how to save money, budget and become smarter with your finances. You become creative on nights out with friends, instead of spending $10 on a vodka cranberry you may run out of the bar to the parking lot and chug an $8 bottle of wine instead. Not only do you have more fun sneaking out of the bar and passing a wine bottle around a group of friends but you save a lot of money. $10 may not seem like very much but I am currently spending $9 a night on a very high rated hostel, in Colombia, Bogota. I learned to invest because of travelling. I want to become more financially literate to make the most of my money.
You meet people that will change your life. I have so many friends around the world. Some are students, servers, lawyers, doctors, business owners, nomads, real estate agents, etc. All of them have a unique outlook on life. They all teach me an individual lesson I would not have learned if I did not travel with them. I am currently travelling with an Argentinian doctor, who I met in Italy and again in Spain. He used all his holidays this year to travel a month through Colombia with me. It has only been two days but I have already learned a lot through him. In Mexico, I was travelling with 4 businessmen who owned their own business and 1 who is currently creating a couple of businesses. I met two of them in Montenegro before they invited me to Mexico. Now I want to start my own business and it is solely because I met them through travel. (I was also travelling with a dentist, doctor, aesthetician and flight attendant in Mexico.) They are all very successful in different ways, it uplifts me and makes me want to be more like them. Not to mention the amount of knowledge I gain as well as maturity.
I have friendships around the world. Who else can say they have a place to stay in Helsinki, Finland / Paris, France / Sofia, Bulgaria / Wellington, New Zealand / New York, USA / Tamarindo, Costa Rica / etc. I would not have made these connections if it had not been through travelling with an open mind. The possibilities are endless when it comes to people you connect with through travel.
You learn more about yourself. When you travel, especially solo, you spend so much time with yourself. You learn what you like and do not like. You learn what you want. An easy example of this is food. Every day you need to eat, on average 3x a day. You need to decide on what you want. Do you want to cook where you are staying, eat out, fast for breakfast? Okay what do you want street food? Indian? Japanese? You may say you make these decisions at home but it is not the same.
I have learned a lot about the way my mind works. For example I think about money as time. How long do I need to work for something to purchase it? If a plane ticket is $400 that is a Friday night working at the bar. Is it worth it? How many days do I need to grind to make enough for a long trip? Or that I am horrible with orientation. I have no sense of direction. I suck at language. I excel at geography, at creativity, at numbers. I would say I am excellent at meeting new people. I know who I am as a person. I am confident in what I want. I know I can achieve anything. This mindset did not come after a month in Europe but it came after I let go of who I wanted to be and accepted who I was.
Travel has taught me to be resilient. Many things go wrong every trip from missing flights, getting covid, being robbed, corrupt police, etc. I am constantly put in uncomfortable situations but every time I come out stronger. Travel has taught me to push through whatever is happening. An example of this is when I was staying in Krabi, Thailand and I had a flight to Cambodia. If you have ever been to Thailand you know that there are tuk-tuk’s everywhere. When I went out of the hotel to the airport it was pouring rain and there was not one taxi in sight. I walked for an hour and still could not find one. I had no data on my phone, I could not call for one. I started going into 711’s asking the workers if they could find me a ride. Unfortunately, no one spoke English nor do I speak Thai. I was at this point 2 hours searching, with my flight was also in 2 hours. I went kept walking in the rain with my backpack. I came across this random family and somehow we communicated. They could not take me to the airport but knocked on their neighbour’s door. A young man around 25 motioned to get on the back of his motorbike. We went very fast to the airport the water pellets felt like glass shards. No helmet and blind trust in a stranger. I could have easily been taken, robbed, assaulted but instead he dropped me off at international flights. I gave him the rest of my Thai currency, which was around 25 Canadian dollars. He was very appreciative.
There are times when I am aggressively catcalled. Jakarta, Indonesia was the absolute worst for this. As much as you think it would not get in the way of your trip it does. When walking down the street everyone stares, makes blowjobs actions and to some extremes follow you. I have learned that they do not want to hurt me, it is very unusual for them to see someone who looks like me alone in their country. I have the attitude, whatever happens, is going to happen and I am okay with it. It is a new adventure. Making the best out of every opportunity.
There are countless other reasons why travel is amazing. Freedom, exploring a new culture, learning history, realizing you should be treated better by employers, friends, family, lovers, etc. I could go on and on and on.
Travel is something I am very passionate about and I would love to share more. If you ever have any questions about anything do not hesitate to reach out to me either through email or Instagram. Another day another post. Hope you enjoyed it. xx
Phu Quoc, Vietnam// 2020