3 Ways Travel Can Boost Your Personal Growth
Travel makes you feel more alive because it places you in new situations and awakens all your senses to novel scenes. That’s why we love road trips, Caribbean cruises, and weekend getaways. These trips revitalize us and assure us that travel can boost us in many ways.
But what if you want more than a pick-me-up? What if you want to leverage travel as a vehicle for personal growth?
Here are three ways you can use boost can boost your personal development:
1. Go on a Wine Tour to Expand Your Education
Wine tours are an educational experience. They will help you become far more urbane at social events that could boost your career, increase your sales, or help you build your business. You’ll impress your colleagues and clients with your ability to talk intelligently about which wine to select for dinner. Knowledge about wine will not only enhance your socialization skills but also help you develop a refined sense of taste.
On a wine tour, you’ll taste wine, learn to distinguish between different wines based on taste and smell alone, and learn all about seasonal harvesting and production at a winery. If you get a chance, go on San Diego wine tours. They are a delightful way to sample wine in wine bars in the downtown area or go to the wineries of Temecula Valley in the USA.
©Exploramum – Travel can boost your compassion
2. Volunteer as a Teacher to Deepen Your Spiritual Faith or Humanitarianism
If you’re an empathetic person, many of the poorer nations you visit for the first time will cause a cultural shock. Many of the things that you take for granted are not even available. This is your opportunity to help by becoming a volunteer for a recognized organization.
Education is a good opportunity to contribute.
In developed countries, we take education for granted. Many young people dislike it, cannot pay attention in school, and eventually drop out of high school. US News estimates that the National High school graduation rate in the United States is around 84.6%.
Meanwhile, in many developing countries, children would love to go to school. Unfortunately, there is a huge shortage of teachers and textbooks. By volunteering in schools, you can help educate children in a subject you used to know well when you were in school. The organization that you work for in the country you are visiting will teach you how to create lesson plans.
Helping others succeed in life will deepen your own spiritual faith or humanitarianism. Giving your time and talent has a way of making you feel part of the cosmic scheme of things.
©Exploramum – Travel can boost your learning of languages
3. Stay With a Host Family to Learn a Language
The best way to learn a language is by living with a host family. You will not only be able to improve your language skills but will also acquire a cultural education, including learning how to cook traditional meals. You’ll understand the culture in a way that you never could have as a tourist.
Living overseas is an especially powerful personal development tool if you are interested in learning a language. Learning a new language is difficult when you buy a language program or take a classroom or online course, regardless of how well-developed the curriculum is. But total immersion learning will speed up your learning curve tremendously because you’ll be forced to speak a language every day under diverse circumstances.
Travel for Personal Development
When we think of personal development and broadening and building your personality and life skills, we often think of reading self-help books, watching online videos, or taking part in workshops or conferences.
Travel can boost and stimulates personal development from a different perspective. Rather than learning concepts and processes, you learn through experience. You’ll experience many unique opportunities, meet many interesting people, and understand the world and yourself from a different point of view.
Question
What do you think are the most important ways travel can boost your personal growth?
I love all these, Ruth! I think travel has boosted my personal growth by teaching me how to be more patient. There are few things that have tested my patience like a dicey border crossing with an agent who didn’t like something we said. LOL!
Travel has also taught me how to be more compassionate and caring towards others, not judging them like I used to before leaving my home country. Never in my life would I have ever thought I would be comfortable (and even miss) living amongst Muslims like we did in the UAE. 🙂
Susan – you are amazing! Your life of travel and the experiences you have had definitely would mean that you have encountered challenges.
But we all get through them. I often miss Kenya so I do relate about you missing UAE
Very wise advice. Great article. A very good and interesting read.
Personal growth is so important. Glad you enjoyed the article.
Yes staying in a host family can be so rewarding! I had a lovely Italian family when I was in Italy 🙂
I wasn’t expecting those 3 points! Especially the wine tour, but I’m not saying I disagree! : ) Thanks for putting different ideas out there!