Reasons to Travel: Why Travel Is So Important

Whether you travel during your summer holidays or embrace the nomadic lifestyle, traveling can be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences. Exposing you to new languages, cultures and landscapes, traveling abroad can come with many appealing benefits. These benefits allow you to gain new experiences and make important memories. Find the top reasons you should travel below.

Reasons You Should Travel

From the lush and sloth-inhabited jungles and tropical beaches of Costa Rica to the metropolitan streets of Tokyo or Paris, many destinations offer plenty of motivation to travel abroad. And while travel can pose some anxieties, such as learning new languages or interacting with new cultures, these fears are generally worth overcoming for benefits such as forming new connections, challenging your comfort zone or simply escaping your everyday routine.

Rest and Recharge

A vacation from work, school or other obligations is one of the best ways to rest and recharge, and traveling to a new destination during your holidays helps you to fully relax. Travel can be a way to disconnect temporarily from life back home, relieving you of usual responsibilities and allowing you to let your mind reset.

There’s no single correct way to travel — your travel time is all yours, and you can spend it whatever way you find most restorative. For some people, that can mean switching things up and getting out of routine with packed itineraries of museum tours, culinary experiences, adventurous hikes or other activities. Others prefer a looser approach to things and revel in minimal structure — letting their whims decide on whether to spend the day at a new city or tropical beach.

Also read: Best Travel Apps for Finding Things to Do on Vacation

Discover New Cultures

Travel can expose you to new cultures that teach you about your similarities and differences. Firsthand experience with new cultures can help you gain new perspectives, deeper understanding and more profound appreciation of the world’s diversity.

Culture encompasses religion, history, language, art and other areas, but it’s a lot more than that. Travel can show you different social and family dynamics from what you’re accustomed to, unique lifestyles and seemingly mundane differences in lifestyle that can actually have a big impact. Many U.S. visitors to France, for example, are shocked and entranced by the leisurely French lifestyle where work takes far less priority than personal care and enjoyment. Likewise, areas with strong agricultural and culinary ties can show travelers how food can be a different experience when you’re intimately involved in its production.

Exploring new cultures doesn’t just teach you about how other people live — it helps you understand why people live the way they do, expanding your mind and allowing for a more curious, empathetic and unprejudiced approach to other cultures and people.

Learn New Things

Stepping away from everyday life presents many opportunities to explore and learn new things. The logistics and various nuances of travel encourage you to work on self-development and practical skills, such as communication, budgeting and independence, but you may also come home with a new talent or hobby. Maybe you spend a week learning to surf in Costa Rica, deepen your yoga practice in Indonesia or learn how to make pasta from scratch in Italy. Nothing is too ambitious to at least start learning while traveling, and you’ll likely find classes and courses scattered across popular travel destinations.

Also read: The Slow Travel Trend

Meet New People

Travel is an almost guaranteed way to encounter new people from all walks of life. Even if you’re already traveling with friends or family, keep yourself open to making new connections. For example, fellow travelers at your hostel, guided tour, culinary class or other tourist activities often have shared interests you can connect over or differing interests that provide you with a new perspective or opportunity. If you’re backpacking, you might even meet new travel companions who eventually become some of your closest friends.

Speak to locals, too — chat with people at local restaurants or bars, or ask your barista or taxi drivers about their favorite ways to spend their time. Locals often have insider tips on the best ways to enjoy their city or country that the tourism industry doesn’t advertise. You might even get lucky and meet a generous person who’s happy to show you where locals enjoy delicious meals, soak in hidden natural hot springs or get the best sunset views.

Also read: How to Weave Wellness Travel into Any Trip

Escape Routine

Leaving life’s problems behind to backpack around the world is a bit of a cliché, but sometimes, it's just what you need to get back in touch with yourself. Whether you’re simply bored with your routine, going through a breakup or dealing with other problems, travel lets you reset and clear your space, focusing entirely on your experience of the novelties around you. 

Mundane routines can hinder creativity and motivation, eventually leading to burnout. With a sense of adventure and excitement, you can gain enriching and fulfilling experiences and return home with new motivation.

Also read: 6 Tips to Learn a Language Quickly and Talk Like a Local on Vacation

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Travel pushes you out of your comfort zone by presenting you with new challenges, such as navigating unfamiliar areas, learning and speaking new languages and problem solving when things inevitably go awry from your original plans. Venturing abroad always comes hand-in-hand with unexpected situations, which force you to hone your resourcefulness and quick thinking. Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable on occasion, and learn to embrace adventure as it comes, regardless of what it looks like.European winter travel can be magical. Embrace the magic – and the hot chocolate.

Volunteer

Few things can immerse you in a new culture like volunteering abroad, which can make lasting and meaningful social, economic and environmental differences for communities around the world. In return, volunteer opportunities help foster deep cultural connections as well as learning empathy for different practices, customs and beliefs. As a result, people who volunteer while traveling find personal growth in developing their understanding and compassion for global communities and earn a strong sense of purpose and confidence.

Volunteering abroad can take many forms. Donating your time and energy can be as casual as signing up to walk dogs at the local shelter where you’re visiting, or you can participate in organized volunteer and nonprofit programs. These may include teaching and education programs, such as teaching a language or school subjects in areas with underfunded education systems. Environmental volunteering organizations offer opportunities to preserve natural habitats and ecosystems, plant trees, install sustainable community infrastructure or work at wildlife shelters.

Why Travel Is Important

Many people feel the urge to travel throughout their lives, often with good reason. Fostering cross-cultural connection, personal development and rewarding adventures, travel presents challenges both predictable and unexpected.

An important part of planning your trip is getting ready for the unexpected by getting the right travel protection plan. Generali Global Assistance makes that easy – get your no obligation quote for travel insurance with assistance services.

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