# Benefits of Travelling: Why to Travel in 2020?
Traveling is the oldest and most mindful experience, which has a history, that is as long as humanity itself. A trickier question is asked: why do people travel? Well. The easiest way to answer the query is that man has the curiosity to explore the world and venture out to discover new realities, people, places, and living beings. Man is not like stationary plants or chained animals. Today whatever the destinations he enjoys or enormous targets achieved, are the outcome of this venturing and adventuring. Imagine, if Darwin stayed put to his church and library, the Theory of Evolution would have never surfaced. If it was not for Newton’s ousting, sitting under the apple tree and watching the falling apple, Gravitational Force and Newton’s law probably would not have been discovered. The lessons learned Shakespeare and Francis Bacon by traveling abroad and domestically, from observing different cultures and people were portrayed in their masterpieces. Last but not the least, Columbus took his leave from Spain, moved toward India, and ended up in America. The rest is history.
Darwin’s theory revolutionized the world. Newton’s laws are considered a breakthrough in the scientific world. The English literature can not be discussed without naming Shakespeare and Bacon and their universally recognized work. The wandering soul that discovered America a few centuries back, now is a superpower and ruling the world.
This is the answer to the question “why should we travel”
## What is Travel?
The simple meaning given in the dictionary of travel is “to go” and “to journey”. But it has different meanings for different people. For some, traveling is simply moving from one place and landing on another. These people stick to the definition that travel is “to journey.” And they fulfill this meaning on all accounts. But many people view traveling in a broader context. According to them, it is not simply a moving and landing phenomenon but an opportunity of self-realization and self-reflection. For them, traveling is less about departing and arriving, more about learning and adopting.
Based on these perspectives and aspects, we conclude that traveling is something setting out from one’s safe zone, landing on another place and culture. As soon this step is completed, next comes the observing vigilantly and wholeheartedly the new place along with its dwellers. Now we got to the third step. Traveling and landing, and passively observing would be meaningless if the new challenging realities, unfamiliar, and exotic culture is not adopted, or at least respected. This last step is paradigm-shifting that broadens one’s worldview and provides multiple prisms to look at things from different angles. Travel should never be confined to enjoying and making fun. Undoubtedly, it is refreshing and rejoicing, but this excitement is like sitting under the shade of the tree, not the fruit. To get the fruit, travelers must chew some hard bones with the flavor of chicken pieces.
## What Is the Purpose of the Travel?
Purposes can vary from individual to individual. Some people travel just for fun. Others have some targeted goals. The purpose to travel might be various but one thing remained the same: They get more as compared to they lose. The achievements can be either in the form of material gain or life-long learned lesson or experience.
There can be dozens of reasons to travel, a few would be covered here.
Konrad Waliszewski, the person who has traveled over a hundred countries, asked people why they travel. He got different answers. Their responses are summed up in an article, titled “Why travel? What is the purpose of Travel?”
People’s mix-response to the question of Konraad are:
“It has deepened my life”
“My perspective has shifted”
“It opens up your possibilities and your horizons and the kinds of conversations you can have, the kinds of experiences you can have”
“It changes how I see and interact with nearly every aspect of the world around me”
“I travel to learn”
“It provides context apart from me”
Traveling has become much easier and refreshing but still, there can be some tips for smart travelers to be considered before voyaging all over the world.
### What are the Benefits of Traveling?
As like purposes, benefits are also countless. We have come up with some more prominent and profitable benefits of traveling.
### Educating Oneself
Traveling can be related to the school-going phenomenon. A child learns from the teacher, fellow students, people around him, and even from the walls of school. The same is the case of a traveler. A traveler educates him/herself, by observing different cultures, people, and their way of life. One can not be a passive spectator but a proactive observer.
A traveler named Jeffrey Lam when returned home, weird and tired, his mom asked “How was vacation? Was it fun?”. The tour was not all comfortable and enjoyable, but it was a learnable experience. So his simple answer to the mom was “I learned a lot.”
It reminds me of the famous quote of Anthony Bourdain. He says:
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
### Relaxing and Enjoying Life
Fatigue is something that badly deteriorates the body along with the mind. It often leads to depression and anxiety. Medical treatment can never be a smart option as it has many side effects and considered momentary doze. The best way to shrug off the burden is: set out and travel as much as you can. Relaxation from the fatigue and realization of the beauty of life will be the outcome and benefits of such traveling.
Accepting new Realities and Challenging Oneself
It is a tough job to go out of the comfort zone, tougher to explore new realities, and toughest to accept them. Exploring new realities and accepting them should be the ultimate goals of a traveler. Pluralism and tolerance is developed by traversing this thorny path. But the final result is taken as the most desirable thing on earth.
### Building New Acquaintances
Travelers come across people, who on the first incidental meeting seem to be strangers but very soon a strong bond is built. With time, they become proficient and profiting friends. It is a family gateway, you bring new family members and mutual sharing of values, culture, customs and traditions take place. Once these relations are strengthened, it means you have increased the circle of your family members, enjoy their hospitality, whenever you chance to travel again. A famous quote that is attributed to Tim Cahill goes as:
“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.”
### Adventuring
Many people have a single purpose to travel; that is to quench their thirst for adventure. It is often quoted that if your job has filled your pocket, then have an adventure, it will fill your soul. For those who can afford, there are 7 adventure vacations awaiting. Non to be missed. Aesop says about adventure that it is worthwhile. Travel is the pill and wine for an adventurous personality. He/she finds all comfortability and relaxation in this tiresome task.
### Escaping
If the mundane life is so boring, the burden of daily work has stooped you, clouds of depression are hovering over you, then leave everything behind and take a break and venture out. Traveling will benefit you enormously. When return to the job, the cool breezing inside will welcome and the work will be fun to do. Life will come back to normality. There is mystery in traveling and trudging.
“Miles to go before I sleep”
## Is Traveling Relevant in 2020?
Traveling is as relevant and beneficial as ever before. No time span can make it irrelevant and useless. Its importance is doubled with every passing year. Human beings are not restricted to a particular area and era. We are living in a global village. This global village has its own demands and obligations. The first and foremost prerequisite it puts on the shoulder of its residents is: to understand the world and make relations with its citizens based on mutual understanding and respect. Accepting multiculturalism and adopting pluralism are the ultimate aims of globalization.
The effective and practical way to accept these diversities of the globe and finally digest them lies in traveling and observing people of different cultures and various backgrounds. So it is safe to say that 2020 is the year with multi-dimensional challenges and only that nation and individual will pass it’s challenging and trying test, who leaves his comfort zone and sets foot on the vast ocean of pluralism, multiculturalism, and humanism. The drop would be no more an isolated and vaporizing droplet but an integral part of flowing, merging, and re-emerging sea. Let be that ever-living and lasting drop of ocean by traveling, reading, observing, and adopting, rather than getting wasted and dusted.