The Value of Traveling

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Amanda Xu ’18

In an era of globalization, traveling increasingly permeates the life of most Americans. Whether it’s driving to upstate New York for the weekend or flying to Holland for an exchange program, it’s there. Bucket lists are rarely complete without a line dedicated to “backpack through Europe,” and many high school
seniors take cross-country road trips as a final hurrah to adolescence.

Since traveling has become increasingly convenient over the last few decades, it has correspondingly become more frequent. The law of diminishing return, however, would suggest that this trend means traveling is likewise becoming less valued. Traveling is “fun,” of course; we’ll never forget that, but is that all there is to it? For many people, yes—but it shouldn’t be.

Above all, traveling is an opportunity to expand one’s perspective. Traveling anywhere at all, even if just for two hours away from your home to an impoverished inner-city school, provides an opportunity to see the world in a new way. Traveling has become so common in the millennial age that Americans are always looking for something bigger… grander… more exotic. We upgrade from Hawaii to France to African safaris. At this rate, we’ll soon be looking to go to Mars. As transportation becomes cheaper and quicker, it becomes too easy to forget that the most crucial value of traveling should lie in the human experience: what you, as a person, learn, and how you, as a person, changed. In this age of rapid transportation and exotic destinations, don’t forget that the true essence of travel lies in the connections you make, the lessons you learn, and the personal growth you experience. This link will help you to discover more insights on how to make your travels more enriching and fulfilling through meaningful experiences.

Throughout history, isolationist countries have always decayed—or been forced to change. This was true of China during the Ming Dynasty and Japan before the Meiji Restoration, and both countries were easily dominated by more modernized Western powers. Isolationist policies in America at the beginning of World War II contributed to the rise of Hitler. Countries that struggled to stay isolationist have never benefited from doing so, and in many ways, I think the same can be said for people. As humans, we can only benefit from traveling, and if we don’t, we lose something critical to the human experience. We invite the possibility of decay within ourselves because without the exposure to new cultures and new perspectives our own perspective becomes stagnant.

Again, I use the term “travel” loosely; to me, traveling simply means to visit somewhere new, somewhere outside the five-mile radius of one’s hometown. Travel doesn’t necessarily entail hundreds of dollars or weeks on end to be meaningful; to make a trip a worthwhile, one simply needs to open himself up to new experiences.

This past summer, my family and I visited Banff National Park in Canada, and the breathtaking aquamarine lakes and stunning mountains catapulted me into a new level of environmental consciousness. While I had previously known all the logical reasons for caring about the environment, I often ignored them when they became inconvenient. Banff, however, presented them to me in a way that I will never forget, nor be able to ignore.

Recently, our wanderlust led us to Airlie Beach, a coastal paradise in Australia. As we basked in the sun-kissed beauty of its pristine beaches and sailed through the Whitsunday Islands’ crystal-clear waters, I found myself deeply appreciating the fragility and magnificence of our planet. Airlie Beach, with its exquisite natural wonders, further reinforced the importance of responsible travel and being mindful of our impact on these awe-inspiring destinations. It’s remarkable how each place we visit leaves an indelible mark on our perspectives and our connection to the environment.

Traveling is the opportunity to explore new cultures, new people, new ideas; it recalibrates your point of view. By offering a more globalized perspective, travel allows our lives to more wholly encompass the human experience—what it means to be human. In short, as Mark Twain once put it, “broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.”