Traveling is different than visiting a country as a tourist. When you're a tourist you sort of limit yourself to getting to know the landmarks, the food and the touristic destinations.
When you travel, you're in a quest for the unknown. You get to a country, but you're more intrigued by its traditions, their way of living and the essence of such country.
Traveling is a means to get to know yourself through the world around you and the lessons this can leave are unlike anything you can ever learn in a classroom or books. You experience, and experience is the best way of learning. But unlike school, you don't know the subjects you'll be learning, so everyday becomes a surprise.
1. Patience
You spend a lot of time in airports and you don't really know what tomorrow is going to bring. Everyday is a surprise when you leave your country with a one-way ticket to the extraordinary. You leave your ordinary behind and suddenly you're unaware of the future. This requires patience and to trust the path you have chosen.
2. Bravery
From afar it can seem exhilarating, leaving your routine and heading to the unknown. But it actually requires bravery, specially if you're travelling alone and as a woman. You need to be able to fully trust yourself, because even if you get to have company from time to time, you know that you can only trust yourself.
3. Love
When you spend too much time in the same place you tend to forget that there's a world outside. That there are people outside your close social network. When you travel you learn to love beyond the borders of your comfort zone. You realize that there's amazing human beings everywhere you go and that the world even if its big, it can be a friendly and lovable place.
4. The Deep Corners of Yourself
Like I said before. Traveling can be a way of getting to know yourself through the world around you. You spend so much time on your own and with your own thoughts that you get to know things and aspects of yourself you didn't know before. You travel within your own psyche and personality and start forging a stronger perception of yourself far away from the expectations that society had of you. Because you no longer belong to society, you belong to yourself.
5. A Wider Mind
I read somewhere that travelling is fatal to prejudice. It's absolutely true. When you get to know the world, different countries, different people, different traditions and explore other cultures. You get to realize that all the prejudice you once held were solely pre-determined perspectives that showed ignorance, not knowledge. You open your mind to a wider possibility and stop judging countries and people based by their nationality and start valuing them as actual citizens of the world.
