Travel is important. This is the very reason why I started this blog, why I have a calendar full of future posts and why many of them are already written.   I love to travel and would rather do so than just about anything else.

I believe that everyone should travel as much as they are able.  Travel broadens your world view and changes you to your very core and I believe that it makes you a better person.  Perhaps it is that you have to step outside of your comfort zone in order to travel.  You actually have to leave everything you know about your daily life and go somewhere else to figure out the way they do it; how they eat, what they do for fun, and which awesome thinkers have left their mark in this new place.

Most of my favorite trips have been overseas.  Does all travel need to be international?  Absolutely not, but some should be. At least once in your life leave your beloved homeland even just for a few days.  When you are a stranger in a strange land  it changes you even more profoundly.  You develop compassion and curiosity. You find out if you really have a taste for adventure or just wish you did.  No matter what happens, you will get a story out of it.  Even run-ins with border patrol agents are funny stories later, as long as they let you back into the country that is. More on that later. 😉

“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” -Dalai Lama

photo credit: Sigismund von Dobschütz
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Seeteufel