Travel is what you make it. You travel to the grocery store, you travel to school, so what separates everyday travel from traveling across the world? I’m learning everyday that travel means something different to everyone. And what someone receives from a trip could be completely different from what someone else obtains. For me, I learn so much more from traveling than anything else, and I know that exploring fuels me. When I travel, I’m aiming to learn as much as I can. Whether that be a new culture, language, environment, or history, I’m actively trying to learn while I’m abroad.
Travel is something that I’ve always wanted to do but never could. As I briefly described in my introduction post, traveling isn’t something that my family really did. We would go to visit family in other states, but always on the east coast. I knew that traveling was something that I wanted to do on a larger scale. I wanted to experience the fun of DisneyWorld or experience what it’s like to live in another country. My mind was so curious and just wanted to explore all of these things for myself, so I looked for those opportunities to do that.
My first trip without my family was through mission trips with my church across the US. We would drive to different places, do service work all throughout the week, and have a fun day. It was great to be with a large group of friends, and really immerse ourselves into these locations; since we were almost always staying in churches or with host families, not hotels. My first time abroad was also through a mission trip (something I plan to write more about in the future so that’s all I’ll say for now). That trip was to Mazatlán, Mexico for a week, which then led to me interning there two summers later for 2 months.
My next string of trips were all with friends, then leading up to my last big trip, which was solo. This was one of the most life-changing trips of my life and it is because of my view of travel. My goal in traveling is to learn as much about where I am. To understand how people live in that area. Not everywhere is similar in terms of everyday life. Culture is such a huge aspect in how we go about life, and for me, I like to try and understand the culture and way of life of the place I’m visiting. My culture is one of the most important things in my life and I love having other people experience it, so I try to do the same when in a different culture.
All of this to say that traveling is such a fun and cool experience. Finding what you love most about traveling will help you in planning and going on trips that are life-changing. What you love most about traveling is unique to you, and finding others who can relate to your travel interests can make it even more interesting! Hopefully through my future posts you’ll be able to learn more about different places, cultures, and ways of travel and you’ll find something that sparks your interest or that you can relate to!