You must Travel While You Are Young

Travel in your youth because life will get out of control in a blink of an eye. Here are the top reasons to travel while you are young and to enjoy every second of it. They say you don’t really know someone until you travel with them; maybe the same is true about learning to know yourself.

Brain train

Travel is among the best education a person can have. We escape our daily lives and see how others live through traveling. Different viewpoints, new ways of life, and understanding how people are alike and different can wire our brains in positive and dynamic ways.

When we are young, our brains are more malleable and easily influenced by anything new or different. Why not take advantage of this open-mindedness while you can? Travel when you’re young, and train your brain to see the world and your place in it; it may never be as open as it is today.

Young people often have so much energy that they bounce from one thing to the next, and often get themselves into trouble for lack of a productive outlet. This is as true in little kids as it is in teenagers and even young adults. As time goes on, we start to slow down, and eventually find ourselves tired.

Shouldn’t we take advantage of our energy while we can? We should use it to discover and plunge into the unknown. It’s the young who discover new worlds, and who take chances on different ideas and unique points of view. We have the energy to travel and see things—to talk and understand how the rest of the world works. If we don’t take advantage of this energy, and we travel later in life, though we still benefit from it, it just isn’t the same as when we have youthful energy on our side.

We don’t mind traveling cheap

Youth travelers are known for roughing it and calling it ‘life experience.’ Jack Kerouak hopped trains and hitchhiked across America, and Gary Snyder trekked through India.

Because we’re young, we want to accomplish what we want as cheaply as possible. Some might encourage you to wait, save your pennies, and explore the world another day, but there’s wildness in letting your inner gypsy out.

Travel, stay in cheap hostels, take cheap red-eye flights, ride the cheaper, slower train, eat local food, and support the local economy. Always have a plan—a backup and an escape route—but choose the inexpensive route sometimes because you never know.

Make social connections

The people we meet when we are young become some of the most important relationships in our lives. While traveling, you will meet like-minded individuals who share your passion and youthful exuberance.

You’ll travel together, share stories and cautions, party together, protect each other, and share advice and dreams. When it’s over, you’ll have memories from those faraway regions. After your travels, you may or may not maintain in touch, but you’ll always remember them.

Some individuals come into our lives and immediately depart; some stay and leave imprints in our hearts; some go and return, but we are never the same.

You may surprise yourself with who you stay in contact with. You could have friends to visit on vacations or even professional relationships that might take your career to the next level.

Whether it’s friends or colleagues, making social connections with individuals all over the world is what we need in today’s global climate, and that spark is something worth celebrating.

Discover yourself

They say you don’t really know someone until you travel with them. The stress and lack of control often show who people are and what they can handle.

Before committing, travel with a companion to check if you’re compatible when things go wrong. Why don’t we do this to find our own breaking point and behaviors?

When everything is easy and going our way, we can be the most relaxed people in the world. All too often, we create a stable life for ourselves so we’ll never be knocked off our pedestal—until something major happens and we don’t know how to manage it.

 

Why not figure out what you are capable of, and learn how to deal with sticky situations while you’re young? That way, when real life happens, you’ve already learned the skills to deal with it.

While traveling, maybe the train is late or cancelled and you have to figure out how to get where you need to go or change plans; maybe your wallet gets stolen and you have no cash left for the country you are in and must wait; or, your bag breaks and you can’t afford a new one so you must MacGyver it in the meantime.

All sorts of things can go wrong while traveling, and you have to have a plan, the ability to problem-solve, and a cool head in order to get through it on your own.

Figuring all this out while you’re young will help you find who you are and what you can handle; it will prepare you for a life with inevitable uncertainty, but you’ll be prepared.

We should travel in our youth since life will throw us problems we can’t control, and I’d want to have played the simulator before the real game.

What are some other benefits of traveling young? Let us know what you think!

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