Of all the reasons to travel, keeping your innocence alive must rank above all else. After all, there is no other activity that can give you the same kick and transport you back to your childhood as travel. Don’t believe me? Think back to the time you last travelled and experienced the following five emotions. And if any of them mean anything to you, then promise yourself to travel more and keep your inner child alive.
Sense of curiosity
You have a sense of curiosity that slowly seeped out of you as you grew up. A steady life is the antithesis of curiosity, something our forefathers mastered as they spread through the world. Today, the entire earth is your oyster waiting for you to discover as you find your sense of curiosity piqued by the many natural and man-made wonders spread across the world. Think back to your bucket list and start ticking them off to ignite your curiousness about the world. In today’s day and age of insulated news, it’ll open your mind in more ways than one.
Meeting new people
It’s more than likely you’re jaded with the number of people on you know in real life and on Facebook. Entire industries have flourished (hello Tinder!) trying to make our mundane lives more exciting by making us step out of our list of comfortable friends and contacts. But travelling, and especially travelling alone, forces to make friends out of complete strangers. More often than not, they turn out to be friends for life. This year, for example, I walked 15 kilometres in a single day in Barcelona with friends I first met in Vietnam. This child-like passion to seek out new people is probably the best reason you need to travel more.
Adventure at every step
A lot of people didn’t like Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha. But that’s because no one understood Ved’s struggle between their grown-up adult life and the freedom they had as children. Travel sets you free from your routine and allows you to have adventures the way you have always wanted to have. Whether it’s travelling the South of France or getting off the map in Azores islands, I’ve always tried to quench my desire for adventure by taking a trip. Where else can you go back to your childhood sense of wonder and adventure except on a journey that makes you want to lead an adventurous life, however brief it might be.
Learning never stops
Remember when you soaked in information like a sponge in your younger days. Then you became opinionated and smart and thought that the Middle East was an unsafe place for visit. It’s not, as Jordan, Egypt and even Turkey will tell you. That’s the thing about travelling—you learn so much by putting yourself in another culture that your worldview changes completely. The knowledge you gain on your travels helps you even when you’re back home since you now have a two-dimensional view of news, rather than just what news reports say.
Happiness is not materialistic
As a child, your meagre possessions were the most precious things you had. You fought for your stuff and protected it as much as you could. But there was one big difference, you were not materialistic about them. You loved your stuff because they were yours, not because the world had it and ads proclaimed it to be the best thing ever. In other words, your happiness was not dependent on materialistic possessions but rather on things that gave you joy. Travel is one of those few experiences that allows you to sieve the impermanence of materialism by forcing you to survive on limited things. And the longer you travel with less stuff, the more you realise how truly worthless some of your most cherished possessions really are. If you haven’t yet found the balance between happiness and materialism, a long trip is just what you need.
Cover image courtesy: Unsplash. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to stay updated with the latest news. Subscribe to my email to stay in touch.
