Sometime last summer, a friend of mine asked the hivemind that is Facebook the following question: “What is one place in the world you have absolutely no desire to visit?” The answers poured in fast and furious. Some were predictable (Auschwitz, the Gaza Strip, Somalia), while others a bit more puzzling: China, France, the Caribbean, and even Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.
At the time the post went up, my boyfriend and I were seven months into a year-long trip that would ultimately take us through China, Hong Kong, Macau, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, and Australia. Not every stop was a cakewalk, but we always found some—and usually many—things to love. To imagine that some of these countries were at the top of a Most Undesirable list was more than surprising to me—on top of that, it just really bummed me out. The way I saw it, even the most backward destinations had something great to offer, if you were only willing to look. And that’s the incredible thing about travel. The more you do it, the better you get—both at it, and because of it.
Travel teaches confidence. If you had told me two years ago that I’d be hanging out naked in a public bathhouse in Naoshima, Japan, I’d say you were crazy—after all, I was someone who had mastered the art of changing into gym clothes without exposing an inch of flesh. Jiggle my jelly rolls around a bunch of strangers in their birthday suits? Fat chance! And yet there I was, my pasty foreign body on view for all the locals to see, giving it the old college try. YOLO, as the kids say.
Travel teaches perspective. I’m not proud to admit it, but there were times before this trip that I’d scroll through my Instagram feed and hate-like all of the beautifully filtered photos from what seemed like hundreds of people traveling to more—or more exciting—places than I was. How easy it was to get swept up in that warped cycle of thinking. And how shameful, in retrospect, to recall all the wonderful people I met in the last year who have never even visited their nearest big city, let alone another country. Others spoke wistfully of a desire to visit the United States, if only they could save up the cash or secure the elusive visa. To travel is a privilege, not a birthright, and something we forget when we’re sucked into the dangerously provincial vortex of keeping up with the Joneses.
Travel teaches gratitude. How often in America do we take for granted that our streets aren’t teeming with garbage? That every child has access to public education? That buildings get rebuilt after earthquakes? That the water in our toilet bowls is often cleaner than the drinking water available to entire villages? That you can insult the government, cops, religion, etc., with abandon and that speech is generally protected? That it is, in fact, illegal to rape a woman here, including your wife? America is not perfect, not by a long shot. But extensive travel teaches you that, for the most part, we are damn lucky to live where—and how—we do.
Travel also teaches you ways in which your home country could do better. At Unawatuna beach in Galle, Sri Lanka, I hadn’t been in the sea five minutes when I felt a searing hot pain wrap itself around my leg. I hobbled out of the water and onto the sand and watched in horror as welts puffed up in red slashes across my knee and thigh. Jellyfish. Our tuk-tuk driver acted fast, and an hour later, I was in and out of a clean, efficiently run emergency room, having seen a doctor and filled a couple of prescriptions for pain and inflammation. The entire experience cost $7.50—hardly enough to even bother filing a claim with my travel insurance. I shudder at the thought of what the bill would have been in the U.S.
Travel teaches patience and composure. When you meet good people with real struggles, living graciously despite desperate circumstances or under unfathomable oppression, you’re less inclined to throw temper tantrums over frivolous First World Problems. After all, what’s a delayed flight, busted zipper or an inattentive waitress compared to volatile governance or catastrophic natural disaster? Nothing to get bent out of shape over, that’s for sure. Sangfroid is a quality that serves experienced travelers well beyond the customs line.
Travel can also teach intrepidness. Shortly after my return to the States, I met a car mechanic in Pennsylvania who said his son had just cancelled a three-day vacation to New York because he was afraid of a terrorist attack. To that, I had one four-letter response: Nope. I understand the compulsion, certainly; some days you read the headlines and just want to batten down the hatches and never go anywhere. But isolation is not the answer. Experience is. The farther afield you go, the more people you’ll meet, and the easier it is to dismantle the walls of fear, anxiety, and xenophobia.
Travel teaches you to see everywhere—even China, France, the Caribbean, and Philadelphia—with fresh eyes. Around the ten-month mark, I got verklempt walking around a vintage store in Osaka brimming with deadstock Wranglers, cowboy boots, and other Americana. Hey, that’s my country! These are our cultural exports! A few weeks later, we had drinks at a bar in Sydney called Shady Pines Saloon. It was like something out of a Spaghetti Western with its stuffed mooseheads, upright piano, and twangy soundtrack. Hollywoodized as it was, it made me pine for my homeland; a word I had never considering using until that moment.
Alas, it wasn’t until we got back to the U.S. and started to unpack our bags that it really sunk in. I was simultaneously grateful to be home but also growing antsy about where to go next. I kept thinking about that Facebook post from over the summer, and that’s when it hit me. Here we had tooled all over Asia, and yet I had never been to the Grand Canyon. Or Las Vegas, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Missouri, or most of Texas. I hadn’t even been to Chicago! This made me sad. Then it gave me an idea.
Road trip.
So that’s the plan. After we’re done visiting family and sorting out boring stuff like health insurance and car inspections, we’re hitting the road again—this time on an eight-month sojourn around the good ol' U.S. of A. We hope to bring the same level of fascination and wide-eyed discovery to our own country as we took abroad.
Travel changed our lives once, and it will change them again. I can’t wait.
