Why Travel Is Good For The Soul

By Emily Plummer on July 2, 2015

It’s 8am and your alarm is blaring. You’re not sure how many times it’s gone off, but you know you must be late by now.

You drag yourself out of bed, slip a backpack over your shoulders, and head out to class. You allow your body’s autopilot to carry you in a sleep-deprived daze through campus.

Feet that know the way well take over, giving your mind its opportunity to drift back into unconsciousness. Similarly outfitted students, bright posters, and regal architecture are blurred into one colorful picture in your peripheral vision as your eyes focus in on the narrow path in front of you.

Source: Flickr.com

Later, you walk home with your roommates, conversing about each person’s classes, exams, and study techniques, waiting for the weekend to come with a break.

And when it does, you’ll ask each other the same question as always — “What should we do today?- aimlessly trying to find entertainment in the place you experience every day.

It’s so easy to get lost in the routine of daily life, to allow its monotony to consume the beauties of the world around you, to forget to appreciate the place you inhabit because of its familiarity.

Have you ever noticed the way everything looks more vibrant when you return home after a long trip? The buildings, the people, the trees — they all have more life when you’re looking with fresh eyes.

Finally you can admire your home instead of simply acknowledging it.

Source: Flickr.com

The same is true for visiting a new place.

When entering a new city, a new state, a new country, you are open to everything this new place has to offer. Eager eyes are drawn to magnificent old churches and brilliant sunsets, noses discern subtle scents in the air- bread from the bakery, blooming flowers, smoke from chimneys. All five senses are taken for a ride in an unfamiliar place, alerted by this sudden change in routine.

It’s this alertness that makes travel enticing, exciting, irresistible. Not only does this new place offer culture, history, architecture, and experiences, but you, the traveler, are far more susceptible to these wonders because they exist outside of your daily life.

The beauty and thrill of new sites and peoples are intensified by enlivened senses.

Bangkok markets aren’t just sites for weekly grocery shopping to a traveler; they are meeting places and hubs of interaction that give insight into Thai life.

The avenues of Paris aren’t just streets on a map that you follow to your destination like those of your hometown might seem; they are vistas of Parisian life where vendors sell handmade crepes, French speaking voices call out to each other, and residents sit outside cafes sipping coffee for hours.

Bangkok Night Market, Source: Heart2heartonline.com

Travel opens your eyes to the world around you by lifting you out of your daily routine, out of the streets you walk so blindly each day — their beauties jaded by too much familiarity. New cities give you a child-like curiosity of your surroundings and a new-found interest in the world.

The world has plenty of beauty to offer, but oftentimes we get stuck in the rut we have dug for ourselves, too deep to see out. Traveling lets you climb out of that rut and explore somewhere you’ve never been. And while you fall in love with the food and language and people of that destination, you can rediscover what it’s like to stop and take in your surroundings so that when you return home, that curiosity and appreciation will stay with you.

No longer will you walk through campus with tunnel vision.

You’ll look around at the faces, buildings, and trees you pass, and realize the beauty of your home.

You’ll recognize differences and similarities between the people and places you know well, and the ones you’ve visited.

You’ll both admire your home and dream of faraway destinations, living with a passion for the world and its wonders.

Source: Hottytoddy.com

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