Why I want to Travel

Why do I want to travel? I guess I could respond to this question with all the traditional answers and they would all be true. I want to travel because I want to gain a new perspective on the world, I want to learn about and experience new cultures, I want to expand my knowledge of the world that I live in. All of these are pretty standard answers and all of them apply to my thirst to travel. But I think the most honest answer I can think of right now is that it something that I’ve never done before.
Many members of my family have traveled around the world. My cousin spent a year studying in Spain and Chile, his younger sister traveled around Russia and spent time in Paris, my best friend has been to England, France, and Australia. My father traveled around Europe when he was my age and I grew up listening to him regale stories of his time spent in Italy, Morocco, and Spain. And the result is that I have become extremely jealous. Their vivid descriptions made me long for my own experiences in these new places.
I love my parents and am incredibly grateful for all of the opportunities that they have provided for me. But traveling to far off places is something that we, as a family, have never been able to do. Both finances and my mother’s fear of boats and planes have kept our vacation traveling on a pretty limited scale.
I view, as clique as it might sound, visiting a new country and culture is a step towards better understanding and appreciating yourself and your own home. By having these new experiences and seeing how other people live, you are able to better evaluate your own life and value system. I often hear that traveling is a “life changing experience” and I believe that this can be very true.
Because I’ve never even been off the East Coast I think that I have romanticized the idea of traveling. I imagine that traveling is being deeply immersed in a place and exploring new places and cultures on a very physical, intellectual, and emotional level. On the contrary I’ve always given tourism a more negative connotation. Even though I’d never even been a tourist I always thought there was something tacky about walking around a big city and buying “I Heart...” t-shirts. But honestly, at this point, a new experience is a new experience, whether I’m a traveler or a tourist, and I’m just excited to be going on a new adventure!