Does Travel Improve Your Quality of Life?

Simple answer, yes!

Travel improves everything about you; your ability to be thrown into a new environment and work out what the hell you’re going to do, your ability to deal with completely different people to yourself (and completely different people than you’ve ever dealt with before)… travel improves your whole outlook on life and the way you live it from then onwards.

If somebody was to come up to me today and say “Benjamin, love the blog (of course), quick question; does travel improve your quality of life?”, I would tell them the following…

Travel gives you interesting stories to tell and things to talk about.

Sure, this isn’t the main reason you would ever go travelling, but it automatically makes you more interesting. I’ve bonded very quickly with people at parties who have been to the same obscure part of the world as I have, as well as instantly being able to get on with somebody better if I have knowledge of their language.

Think about it: nobody will ever find travel boring.

Sure, if you go on about your one trip to Spain in 1998 to your same group of friends everytime you see them they will tire of it – and you – very quickly, but if you travel often, seeing different parts of the world every few months, people will lap it up. Travel is sexy.

The more you travel the more you will be exposed to situations far outside of your comfort zone, and as we all know, when you overcome something you’ve tried to do for a long time, not only do you feel great, you set the bar even higher for next time.

It’s win win, grow grow.

I’ve only been overseas three times in the last year (since March 2010, when I went overseas for the first time in six years and flew for the first time) and I was feeling pretty well cultured until I landed in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago.

La Rambla aside, I’d never felt so uncultured while walking down Barcelona’s side streets. dodging the pickpockets and prostitutes (dodging the prostitutes mum, I swear). Because of this experience, my comfort zone has grown once again. Bring on Morocco!

You see good in strangers all over the world.

Strangers do good things for other strangers everyday in your hometown, but it’s often not until you’re travelling around the world and more alert that you begin to notice it.

Whether it’s taking somebody’s photo for them at Camp Nou Football Club or leaving food and drink for your newfound roommates when you leave your hostel, people are incredibly kind and generous, the vast majority of the time.

Exposing yourself to such a new variety of people and situations is the nature and beauty of travelling. The moments you always remember the most, I find, are the human elements.

I know I’ve only been travelling for twelve months, but I can remember vividly nearly all of my interactions with people in different countries across Europe. Like I said, people are incredibly kind and generous.

How has travel improved your life?

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