Travel. It’s one of those activities that exhausts me from beginning to end, and I question my sanity while planning, traveling and recovering, but for me, a life lived within a radius of a few hundred miles would feel incomplete. Experiences that my family have had traveling have given us a new appreciation for the world, and connected us time after time to the reality that people truly aren’t all that different from one another. Not to mention, journeys never fail to kick me out of photography doldrums and deliver fresh inspiration for imagery. Here are a few of the reasons why I travel, and think that you should, too:
-To realize similarities
It is one thing to read in a book, or watch on a screen, as someone else explains to you the similarities between your culture and another. It is something else entirely to buy yourself a plane ticket to a country where you barely understand the people, but yet through gesture and facial expression you are able to, mostly, get by. As humans, person to person we are not the same, but experiencing the ways that we are similar, through interacting one on one with people who look or act very different than ourselves, never fails to overwhelm with a sense of connection.
-To feel connected
Yes, to feel connected to a place that is not home, but also to feel connected to myself. Travel strips away my personal presuppositions. Things that I thought I could not do, would not eat, would never experience? During the time that we’re on the road I have multiple opportunities to find and become acquainted with the real me.
-To appreciate beauty
Like I shared in this post, beauty is a vast topic. Working from home, with small children, gives me the chance to appreciate the beauty of family life, quite often, but when I travel the doors to the beauty of the world are flung open. There is beauty in the decay, just as much as there is within the grandeur.
-To eat
I promise you, the food that you grew up eating is not the only food that there is in the world. While I enjoy an elegant, or expedient- whatever may be more important at the moment- restaurant meal, the home cooked meals in foreign lands are most always my favorite. Food represents hospitality, familiality, love. Share a meal with new friends and make memories to last a lifetime.
Next week- 6 tips for Travel Photography!
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