Why Travel?

The better question to me might be:
Why wouldn’t you travel?
 
There are so many beautiful landscapes to be discovered.
So many bustling cities to be explored.
So many countries full of history to be toured.
So many interesting cultures to be immersed into.
 
It’s my thinking that we probably learn more about history, geography, cultures, religions, and societies from traveling than we learned in all of our schooling.
As humans, we learn best when we are personally fully involved in the experience.
Memories from what is learned through traveling cannot be replaced.
Images of what was seen through our own eyes is much more powerful than looking at pictures and reading through pages of a textbook.
 
In Pompeii, I thought I knew all there was about Mount Vesuvius and how the volcanic eruption wiped out the city in one swift vicious sweep of lava and ashes. But, was I prepared to see the bodies that were buried and suffocated in fear? No.
Sure, I knew that archeologists were able to uncover and recreate the forms of bodies so many years later, however there is something about seeing the babies and the defensive positions and sheer terror in person that sticks with you and truly forces you to understand.
 
I believed I knew what Rome carried for history and how significant the monuments were. But, while standing so insignificantly below the stunning temples and the unbelievably impressive Colosseum, I finally realized how I had no clue just how magnificent it all was until that very moment.
 
Before traveling to particular select parts of Colombia, South America I thought I had seen what poverty was. After riding horses through a small ‘village’ of trees with tarps above and pieces of plywood leaned, I found what had become their norm was something I was blessed to have never had to experience in my lifetime.
 
In Mexico, I thought I knew about how the Mayans and Aztecs lived when they inhabited the land there. But, until seeing a dance demonstration when my husband and I visited the areas of Tulum, I had no idea how much blood was shed and how they have now come to celebrate how their culture was developed from a mix of their and Spain’s influences in the land.
 
Even when I went to Washington D.C. and Philadelphia I thought I knew plenty about my own country’s presidents and the founding fathers. But, when you see the White House, the presidential museums, the Liberty Bell in person, you can fully immerse yourself it what it may have been like at the time when we were first figuring out our new nation.
 
And so, before you ask why you should travel somewhere, I hope you think of all of these reasons of why you
​shouldn’t say no.

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