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It’s impossible to say enough about the significance of traveling for any person’s growth and happiness. If you want to know exactly why traveling is good for the soul, you’ll find this post pretty helpful.
Before the pandemic, I used to travel every 2-3 months. Oh, happy days… It was my perfect schedule!
Nowadays, it’s still a little harder to implement regular trips in the schedule due to all the changes…
However, I would say that as long as the resources and opportunities allow, every person should make traveling (at least yearly) a set-in-stone part of their life.
And I only say ‘yearly’ because, for most of us, it would be comfortable enough to find time for traveling and not have it interfere with other important plans and events. If you have an opportunity to travel more, then you’re lucky!
In this post, we’ll talk about the reasons traveling is good for the soul, will answer the question “Why is traveling important for learning?”, and will take a look at what some legendary figures had to say about adventures in my selection of travel quotes.
I’m even revealing some of my own travel notes for you to check out and get inspired. 🙂
So pour yourself some coffee and let’s begin!
This post is all about how traveling is good for the soul.
🏝 Why traveling is good for the soul
So have you ever heard the phrase “vacations are good for the soul”? Have you wondered why?
First of all, it’s fact that you’re finally resting and taking a break from working crazy hours, sitting at the office, running errands… But a huge part of it is actually the traveling part!
Traveling is incredibly beneficial for anyone. But I believe that creatives and highly sensitive people hit the jackpot with it 🙂. So if you’re one, pay close attention to the following.
So here are the biggest reasons why traveling is good for the soul:
▪️ It makes you stay fully present
Just think about it. When you are traveling, you are not thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch tomorrow, about the show that you watched two days ago, about what you’re going to say at a meeting next week… You are not even answering your emails or messages because…
There are so many things around you that need your attention RIGHT NOW. So many unfamiliar smells, tastes, views, people, and sounds, that you’re just soaking in every second of it. You don’t want to miss anything!
That’s exactly the reason why you stay fully present a lot of the time during your trip. And it’s incredibly good for you!
The present moment is the only time we live in. There is practically no past or future. All we have control over is the present.
Below is one example of how the very first seconds of the trip made me fully experience the present moment and resulted in some interesting observations. The passages below were written in a cab that was cutting through the empty foggy streets in the early morning of August 21st. Inside of it — us, sleepy, snuggled up in sweatshirts.
Not a single movement on the usually noisy street. I’m looking out the window at the shadows — the ghost of a park plunged into fog, the dark squares of coffee shop windows, the pale flickering lights of street signs. The non-standard state of standard things usually makes me open a note or take out my journal. At one moment, thoughts fill my head to the top, so I can no longer endure — I have to write them down. I have a baseball hat on my head, headphones in my ears, and my phone with an open blank note in my hands. The taxi driver is playing this strange music, but I don’t ask to switch, because everything at this moment is unusual and merges into a harmonious image of this early morning. Thoughts flow, flow, flow… This time is the most beautiful. I’m trying to imagine what these streets look like during the day, but I can't. Those are new streets. And at night, everything looks different.
By the way, I love meditating when I travel because it makes my experience even deeper. I highly recommend trying it! Here are some posts that can be useful if you want to try meditating:
How to Meditate in Bed: Quick Guide
How to Meditate Spiritually: Complete Guide
▪️ It challenges your curiosity and imagination
Nothing else makes you question, wonder, visualize and fantasize more than visiting a new country!
Being immersed in a new environment, you can’t help but look around with your eyes open wide.
The amazing part is that your trip begins right when you leave your house! At that moment, your mind begins to readjust to the new exciting, adrenaline-filled mode.
So next time you’re traveling somewhere and want to encourage you imagination, try to think of the below:
- If you’re on a train or bus, on your way somewhere, look out the window. You are passing by unfamiliar streets, houses, and gardens. You are looking at the people who’re walking along these streets…Try to think, what would it feel like to become one of them for a minute, find out who they are, where they are going, what they do, and what they are interested in. Why are they here? Why do they walk down this street as if they walk here every day? If you’ve never been here before and they walk here every day, then they are probably very different from you. Or not?
- If you’re on a plane, and you’re lucky to have a window seat, look out at the sky and land below, and think of this. Normally, we wake up every day, look out the window, and think: “It will rain today” or “It will be hot again!” For us, this small piece of the sky is something big and important that to some extent will determine our actions during that day. Up here, in the skies, it’s much easier. When you’re on top, you can see a bigger picture. You see the clouds that are just scattered around like powdered sugar: a little here, a little there, but not here. And you see a small piece of the sky surrounding the plane you’re on, that actually covers huge areas down there and affects tons of people.
- Here’s another thing to think of, if you’re on the plane during nighttime. It is an incredible feeling to look through the plane window and see one or two other planes flashing in the dark. At the same time, within a relatively small space, a few aircrafts meet while flying in completely different directions, practically “crossing” the fates of the passengers in the sky. At an altitude of more than 30,000 feet, there is a traffic flow, which is regulated by men in white shirts and blue caps, each managing their own crews.
▪️ It brings you great memories and enriches your own history
As I already mentioned, for your body the journey actually begins the very moment when you get into a cab with suitcases and head to the airport.
The city around you is either sleeping, hurrying to work, or celebrating some holiday. In the nighttime, you would rush through the dark sleeping streets. Big and small, all the houses keep some kind of silent secret. There are street lights all around, dark shop windows… In the daytime, it’s dozens or hundreds of people passing by you in different directions living their lives. They are in their familiar daily flow, and you’re getting further and further from that, and closer and closer to your new adventures.
For the city, it’s an ordinary day, but for you, it’s the beginning of a new little life that you will spend in another place, getting used to people and weather, absorbing a completely new atmosphere…
At the end of the day, all we have left with us are our memories. When the end is close, all that matters is our life story.
Traveling helps us write our own beautiful story, so different from everyone else’s. Traveling brings us all sorts of connections, knowledge, experiences, and events, that form our personalities. It lets our kids and their kids understand and know us better, even after we’re gone. It showcases who we really are through our choices and decisions.
And there’s always a choice to live an exciting, fulfilling, courageous life.
▪️ It makes you learn about the world, but most importantly, about yourself
Traveling is good for the soul because we’re learning tons of things while traveling.
With us being the most important one!
Traveling is crucial for self-discovery. You’ll have much more time with your own thoughts on your trips, so you’ll be noticing a lot of things about yourself.
You’ll start observing your reactions. You’ll start noticing different thinking patterns that might have slipped away from you before. You might find out that you’re actually an early bird more than a night owl, that you’re a savory food lover and can easily skip a desert, that transport delays don’t bother you while people getting annoyed at it nearby affects you greatly…
These things are all so tiny but so helpful to know about yourself (I recommend taking notes to remember all of them!).
For example, there’s one thing that I’ve noticed since I was a kid. Have you ever experienced the following…
On your traveling day, you are full of anticipation. You pick up your packed suitcase, ready to get into a taxi for a new adventure, and you suddenly feel sad and really don’t want to leave…
My guess is that the instinct of self-preservation in our body is triggered in those moments. It desires to stay in its comfort zone. It happens because our brains are wired to minimize unfamiliar situations as much as possible.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
RELATED POST: How To Stay Positive When Nothing Is Going Right
▪️ It encourages your personal evolution
Traveling forced you to see things differently, see how big this universe is, and how many beautiful different places and people there are out there.
When we are leaving our comfort zone, we find ourselves in a situation of uncertainty, in which our brain is challenged to work harder to make sure we have all the resources if need be.
We learn how to manage our emotions and we train our patience when the trains are being canceled, flights are being delayed, and the hotels are being sold out.
We learn to set our priorities right and choose what’s important to us and what we should let go of.
We gain our confidence through looking back at how far we’ve come and all our accomplishments throughout the journey.
We dematerialize our lives and get grounded.
We develop a greater tolerance for things and people that are different from us.
We learn to be grateful for the things we have in our lives.
We develop our own preferences and dislikes without much influence or societal pressure.
We gain a lot of independence which makes us independent sooner or later.
We become more responsible and disciplined, but also more open-minded and willing to take risks.
🚂 Why is traveling important for learning?
According to the Worldpackers, traveling is extremely valuable for learning and education because:
- It expands your horizons through your engagement with other cultures
- It encourages you to participate in local life which brings you closer to people and promotes more empathy and understanding toward others
- It challenges you to grow — from obtaining new skills and gaining more confidence, to self-discovery and self-acceptance.
- It teaches you to acknowledge and accept all the diversity out there, which helps you to connect better with others.
- It teaches you about the history behind the current complexities of social, political, and economic structures.
Learning new things is one of the essential reasons why traveling is good for the soul.
✈️ Travel quotes
Here are some travel quotes that I absolutely love:
“Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled.” — Muhammed
“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all” — Helen Keller
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” — Saint Augustine
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” — Jack Kerouac
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
“Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.” — Dalai Lama
“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine. It’s lethal.” — Paulo Coelho
“Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” — Paulo Coelho
This post was all about how traveling is good for the soul.
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