Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. - Seneca

You are tired, you have to drag yourself out of bed each morning and your life seems to be somehow spiraling downwards… your enthusiasm for work gets lower each day and so does the interest in your hobbies and social life. You’ve got some vacation time banked but you’re thinking that you don’t have enough money to travel. You are wondering if going away, even for a little while, is worth the effort…

If you are in the above situation, then you really cannot afford not to travel.

If you are not in that situation: travel anyway, it will benefit you more than you can imagine; you might even achieve success because you did!

In this modern and busy life of ours, planning a getaway is not always an easy job. Most people have budgets to keep, schedules to follow, children to take care of… But the time when travel is most necessary is the time when you think you don’t have enough time / money to do it.

Getting away, even if for a short period and to a nearby destination, can do wonders for your well-being. As the opening quote beautifully puts it, it will “impart new vigor to the mind.”

I’ll share a little secret with you now (shh, don’t tell anyone): the inspiration to start this blog, the motivation and enthusiasm to keep working on it, the strong desire to help others, the power to start thinking and to seeing life in perspective would not have been possible without travel.

However, an important note must be made: by travel I’m referring to wandering (go someplace see everything) and not to tourism (go there see that).

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sight-seeing.” - Daniel J. Boorstin

Let’s see how travel will change your life

Traveling alone, or solo travel, is the quickest and easiest way for you to grow your independence and confidence. Most of the traveling that I’ve done has been solo travel, and one of the main things I’ve noticed upon returning from each getaway is the fact that I felt like I have accomplished a certain something. It’s an indescribable feeling that makes you feel like you’re on top of the world and everything is possible. That feeling is triggered by the fact that traveling alone allows you to do a lot of things about which you previously thought that you can’t do without name_someone_close_here.

Independence and confidence help you in both your professional and personal life.

Being alone and away from it all gives you time to think. It regroups your thoughts and allows you see life from a whole different perspective. It is always during long train rides that I find myself having the deepest thoughts about my life, and that is the time when the opportunity windows get clearer. After all, only from the outside can we look back in.

Also, traveling alone has certainly made me more organized - in both thinking and living.

Travel reduces stress and decreases burnout. Even if traveling can sometimes be stressful, travel stress is a good type of stress, because it is not the kind of anxiety caused by work or tension related to home life. Stress reduction, however you accomplish it, is always healthy.

Being stuck in one place for too long can make your mind stagnate and turn everything there is in your daily routine into a suffocating chore. Any kind of trip provides you with a break from the norm and that alone can fill you up with a vibrating energy.

Another thing which traveling does is it teaches you one really big thing that was never learned in school: expect the unknown. Dealing with unknown people in unknown places makes traveling an unforgettable and fascinating experience. And as new connections are created inside the brain, all your mental abilities are improved – so you’ll return home both relaxed and smarter.

Mark Twain said that he had found out that “there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them”. And that is as true as it can be. However, the best part about it is that it also brings out the real person in you. Your likes and dislikes, qualities and weaknesses, it all becomes evident. Knowing more about yourself while having a fresh perspective on your life can only have good results.

Seeing other people in their own surroundings also makes you more tolerant to their beliefs and ways of life. That enables you, after returning home, to better understand all the different cultures surrounding you in your daily life.

Traveling makes it easier to be grateful. It gives you a chance to look with new eyes on familiar things. You will begin to appreciate all that you have in your life at its true value. Lin Yutang, a Chinese writer and inventor, said that “no one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” I now realize that what I treasure most about travel is not that it gives me a chance to see novel things, but the fact that it gives me new eyes to see the old ones. In this aspect, traveling boosts your creativity like nothing else. Peter Gabriel, an English musician, writer and video maker, believes that “traveling is good for lyrics. Sitting in a room with a blank sheet of paper is tough.”

You can see that traveling has tons of exceptionally positive benefits. It cleanses the mind, touches the spirit, lightens the heart and reconnects you with that old one, yourself.

As a tip for having a uniquely wonderful travel experience: go to a railway station and take a train eighteen hours in one direction or another. I know it sounds silly and anyone with a brain would call this to be an insane idea, but the things you will learn this way are priceless - trust me on this one.

Another tip: if possible, forget the car and the airplane; travel by train. You will have a stress-free journey gazing out of the window, plenty of leg room and air at atmospheric pressure. On top of that you will reduce the environmental impact of traveling and won’t be stuck in those horrid traffic jams.

So, go out, meet some fascinating people, see your country, visit the world. I can almost guarantee you that by traveling more your universe will infinitely improve, without any effort!

Half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness. - Ray Bradbury

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