There are very few people who don’t love to travel. Whether that’s to a quaint nearby village or a city on the other side of the world, it can take any shape you prefer. But aside from the obvious visual and escapist benefits travelling can offer, it also helps you grow as a person. Here’s a few ways you can see personal growth by travelling.
Improved communication skills
It’s generally considered good travel etiquette to learn a few basic words in the language of the country you’re visiting. You don’t need to go overboard and try and learn the entire language in the month leading up to departure, but a little effort goes a long way.
However, even pushing the etiquette of this aside, it has benefits to you as an individual too. By embracing the language of your destination country, you teach yourself how to broaden your communication abilities. Not only do you literally learn a new language to communicate with, but through interacting with new people while travelling, you also discover how to cater to different communicative styles. Communication is a nuanced and heterogeneous skill that manifests in different ways across the world. It lends itself to many different areas of life, so don’t be too quick to dismiss its benefits.
Encourages you to handle your money carefully
Sometimes it can be easy to give into the whim of an impulse buy on something you don’t really want. Although not everyone has the luxury of being able to give into an impulse buy, travelling tends to require planning ahead of departure to ensure you’ve got the finances to fund your journey. Not only do you need to make sure you’ve got enough to cover your trip timeline, but depending on where you visit, you also need to consider exchange rates, currency conversion, whether you need to carry cash (and how to keep this safe) and so on. So travelling is a great opportunity to develop some new sensible habits.
You learn more about yourself
Travelling solo is a great way to get to know yourself better, but you don’t have to go solo to see growth. It doesn’t matter who or how many people you travel with, travelling can help you learn more about yourself. Taking your life out of context and experiencing new ways of life can change the way you think about the world. You might discover new and unexpected foods you like, or activities that you definitely don’t like. Either way, there’s always more to learn about yourself. Humans are complex, often with sides to us we never knew existed, and travelling is the perfect way to discover these new sides.
Discover new cultures – empathetic growth
Without exploring new cultures, it’s easy to see your way of life as the norm. But by discovering different cultures, you learn something new about the different lives being led across the world. This is great not only for learning but also for increasing your own empathetic capacity. Empathy is predicated on your ability to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and relate to their feelings. It’s an incredibly valuable trait to have, as it’s what makes the world a better place. Any opportunity to improve your empathetic tendencies is one that should be welcomed. Particularly in a world that’s always striving for progress.
Conclusion | How travelling helps you grow
Travelling can help you grow in a plethora of ways. The benefits of your experience are ultimately up to you and how far you’re willing to push yourself. But if one things for sure, it’s that you won’t regret the growth you see from it.
