There are numerous reasons to travel, from the deeply personal to the generic and everything in between. There are the reasons why we do travel, from the requirements of work to the allurement of a thrilling new adventure; from the demands of our mind and body for rest and relaxation somewhere far removed from the arena of our daily lives, to the almost methodical ticking off of the next item on our bucket list. And then there are the reasons why we should: recent scientific research is showing that travel and in particular, travelling abroad, is actually good not only for our physical but also our mental and emotional health, with benefits ranging from decreased stress levels to increased creativity. Here are a few of the reasons that we love travel:
Travel can stimulate our desire for discovery. It can be the desire for discovery that initiates the urge for travel in the first place, true; but we’re talking about more than just discovering new places, seeing things first hand that we haven’t seen before or tasting local dishes with flavours that can’t be recreated at home (although we love those things too!). Travel offers access to more than just tangible sights and experiences; it is the entry way into a world of new intangible realities. A new way of looking at the world, a new perspective on problems and problem solving can lead to a whole new realm of discovery within the sphere that we thought that we already knew.
Not only does travel afford us the opportunity to see and evaluate our world differently, it also allows us the time to internalise and absorb the things that we have seen. Whether it is long hours spent sitting on a plane or lazy days spent lying on a beach, travel draws us into a time paradigm completely removed from the business and busy-ness of our normality where we can set aside life’s distractions and demands and pause to reflect and re-evaluate. Travel is an invitation to change, where we are confronted not so much with our own shortcomings as with the richness of the world we inhabit, beckoning us toward growth.
Perhaps our top reason to love travel though is because travel lets us evaluate first hand the world that we may have only seen through our television and computer screens. In an age where “fake news” appears to be as prolific as genuine news, exacerbating cultural and religious divides, sometimes the best way to get over our own latent xenophobia and confront our own biases is to get out into the world and rub shoulders with people who are different to us. Travel is the purposeful stepping out of our comfort zone to see and appreciate the beauty of someone else’s world, made vibrant by the individuals who inhabit it.
Godwit Tours is a New Zealand based boutique tour operating company. If you think you might like to travel with us, have a look at our upcoming tours to Central Europe and Turkey on www.godwittours.com or contact us for detailed itineraries on 09 927 7611 or contact@godwittours.com
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