Nothing in life can have as great an impact as travel. Whether it be abroad or domestic, you never come back the same. Traveling pushes you out of your comfort zone; to learn things about yourself you would otherwise never know. It takes learning past a textbook and into something real and tangible. It can make you uncomfortable or even uneasy being in a new or foreign land but being taken out of your element can only promote growth.

Traveling forces you to live in the moment. It is so easy to get caught up in our 21st-century lives stuck to our iPhones and forget to live in the present. Traveling means sometimes not having WIFI (gasp) or maybe having absolutely no cell service at all. Traveling is a time to unplug. Even if there is Wifi and service, you’re still in a new and unknown place which pushes you to look around and live in the moment.

Traveling broadens your world view. Every place has its own unique fingerprint. The new cultures, people, and foods all impact your overall worldview. You are not only learning about what makes people and places different but, more importantly, what makes them similar to you. Through travel we are able to take a step back and see how other people live and in doing so are able to better understand the world as a whole.

Traveling is one of the most important things for a person’s overall development. It changes us in a way no other experience can. We are able to learn more in a few days in a new place than we may have learned in months in our usual routine. Traveling is a shaping experience that leaves a lifelong impact.