You can hear lectures on history, read up on fascinating worlds, salivate through exotic menus and feast your eyes on places that look like they could come straight from a fairy tale. You can do all of the above, but nothing will open your eyes as much as seeing the world for yourself when you travel. To travel somewhere is more than just sightseeing, taking pretty photographs, and trying to order from a menu in a foreign language. When you travel, you experience the world. You enrich your soul.
There are only too many places to choose from. It’s a big, big world out there. To travel means to give in to the fact that you’re just a mere wanderer. You’re smaller than the little men in Gulliver’s Travels. When you travel, you’re just a little person with a little camera and a little journal. You succumb to being ignorant. To having only explored a tiny portion of the world. You relent to the great outdoors, and you let it envelop you.
To travel is to have an open mind. You’ll encounter sights you never knew existed. People you never knew existed. You’ll talk to them. You’ll try to understand their life. They’ll try to understand yours. Perhaps they won’t. Perhaps you won’t. But you’re a better man for trying. And then you’ll travel some more, and the process begins again, but it’s not a redundant processes. No, because to travel means always finding something new.
After your travel is over, you’ll hail a cab home. The lights of your city have never shone brighter. You step out of the cab, and the doorframe seems cleaner, newer. You climb up the steps, and you’re home. Maybe there’s a loved one waiting for you. Maybe they’ll be waiting tomorrow. But as you curl into your bed and sigh, “home sweet home,” you realize the world is not the same as you used to see it. And so you vow to always travel.