For many in 2020, this wasn’t a year for grand adventures or travel of any kind, unless it was to your fridge and back to the couch. We were all affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 in some way, and while few did venture out across state borders, more chose to stay at home and play it safe.

Let’s face it, nobody saw the pandemic coming, or the subsequent shutdowns across the world. But as regulations are now mostly relaxed across the United States as of 2021, more people are getting back out on the road to make new memories.

Travel is a vital part of the human experience. For ages, we have traveled and explored our world, and it is by means of travel that we’ve been able to map the entire globe.

Whether you decide to schedule a car rental and drive to New York City, or if you’re heading up in the mountains, in the following article we’ll explore the benefits of travel and how it could easily change your life.

Understanding Diversity

If you sit in one little corner of the world all of your life, you’ll only understand life as it exists around you. Sure, you could form deep understandings for other cultures, people, and places by reading or watching informative television, but you’ll never gain a true comprehension of people and the diversity that comprises cultural centers unless you visit these places.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrowmindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” This quote speaks a great truth about how one can only view other people and places through the lens to which they’re accustomed to. Unless you’re able to experience firsthand the places and people that you criticize, you probably shouldn’t be critical of them to begin with.

Travel enables one to break free of preconceived notions and previously held beliefs, and this allows you to understand the many dimensions of a place that you’d otherwise be clueless about. Travel truly opens many doors, and one of these leads to the heart and mind.

Form New Relationships

You probably have a few friends that live near where you call home. And while having close friends is a good thing, when you travel, you open up the possibility of meeting new and exciting people that can show you another side of the world and another way to view life.

It might go without saying that people in California are going to be fairly different from those who grew up in Kansas. The perspectives that you share about your local area and the people within it are always going to be night and day when compared to others from different areas.

When you meet people from different places, you’re not only able to learn about a new place through their experience, you might also make a lifelong friend. The more diverse your personal relationships are, the more diverse you become as a person. And, this is a true mark of being well-traveled in life.

Finding New Passion

Though you could possibly fall in love with an amazing person that you never would’ve met had you not traveled, you could also fall in love with a new lifestyle, a new hobby, or a new career.

Believe it or not, staying in one place limits you to the availability of activities and careers that you’d be otherwise exposed to in other locations. Unless you live in a place like Houston, New York, or Chicago, your opportunities might be limited more in other less populated areas.

Traveling brings light where there was once darkness. For example, maybe you never knew you loved climbing mountains until you took that trip to Colorado. Or, perhaps you’d never have found a love for Southwestern art if you never visited Santa Fe.

Going to new places brings you the opportunity for new experiences. And you never know what you’re going to find.

All in all, there are too many beneficial reasons to travel to try and list. The bottom line is that travel brings these new and exciting experiences into your consciousness, and one of these experiences could easily change your life for the better.