Wanderlust: a strong longing for or impulse toward wandering; the wish to travel far away and to many different places.
Travellers might have even more of a reason to want to hop on a plane this year and go off into a foreign wilderness after recent pandemic-related events. We can already imagine their fingers itching to press that ‘Book Tickets’ tab online and await the sweet escape.
If you were a lover of travel before everything got locked down, you’re probably dying to experience the local scenery of a country other than your own. To get you in the adventurous mood, here are some of the benefits of travelling!
IT’S BOTH PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY HEALTHY
Of course, when you’re travelling, you might be doing a lot of walking, perhaps far more than when you’re stuck in your own country at an office job. It’ll be tiring exercise, but worth it for your physical health in the long term, as studies have shown that travel can help reduce things like heart disease. Some fresh air and sunshine will also do a world of good.
This will have positive effects on your mental health, too. Taking a break from your life and escaping for a while is known to reduce anxiety, stress, and depression, and can help you disconnect, relax, rejuvenate, and reset from daily life.
SOME THINGS CAN ONLY BE EXPERIENCED IN PERSON
Admittedly, the internet has helped to make a lot of things easily available for everyone around the globe; we can share anything in a matter of seconds through social media. But that’s no alternative to actually being there. Sure, learning things through books and videos has its advantages, and you can certainly build up quite a database of information like that, but seeing a work of art in a museum as opposed to a book, or getting to walk through forests and mountains rather than just seeing them in documentaries, are vastly different experiences.
IT’LL MAKE YOU MORE INTELLIGENT
As with the previous point, there are certain things you’ll only be able to learn about and absorb in person. When it comes to a culture that’s different to yours, experiencing it first-hand can be infinitely mind-opening. You’ll be exposed to totally new things that’ll broaden your perspective on life. By building a tolerance for uncertainty, you’ll learn to just go with the flow and treat every day like it’s your last, living completely in the present.
As you can imagine, this will help you transform into a more interesting person with loads of great stories to tell about the delicacies you’ve tried, the languages you’ve learned, and the solid friendships and relationships you’ve built along the way. All of this will contribute to making your senses sharper and your mind more creative, and will also look attractive on a resume!
TRAVELLING ALONE WILL BUILD CONFIDENCE
Apart from the obvious advantages of travelling alone, such as getting to follow your own route and schedule, and avoiding pesky arguments about where to go and what to see, more than anything, it’ll help you learn to be more comfortable with your own company. This is something that an over-stimulated technological society has trouble with; we can rarely ever shut down and ‘do nothing’, away from mobiles and other such activities.
Learning to be alone and relying totally on yourself can be an extremely liberating feeling, providing a great, though often scary, opportunity for introspection and reflection. Getting out of your comfort zone can be difficult, but the rewards are endless.
IN THE END, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FUN!
Perhaps the whole point of travelling is that you’re opening yourself up to the world and saying: “Give me everything you’ve got.” While this isn’t to say that travelling is for everyone, human beings are, to a certain extent, naturally nomadic people, historically moving from one geographical region to another for any number of reasons.
Back in the 1800s, the Grand Tour was all the rage with the upper classes, the final stage in an adolescent’s worldly education. Nowadays, the relatively cheaper cost of tickets for any mode of transportation means that anyone can hop on a plane, boat, train, or car in a heartbeat and be in a completely different time-zone in a few hours. If nothing else, it’s a celebration of the wonderful advancements in technology that allow for all this to happen!
And, at the end of the day, seeing how others live their lives can also help you cherish your own more. Nothing will make you appreciate coming back to your home sweet home than a long trip away from it all.
