Money means different things to everyone, but ultimately it is one thing: a currency that allows us to exchange one thing for another. For such a simple thing we overstate its importance and let it control our decisions.
I understand that this is the case for certain things, like buying a house. But for travel, it’s a different story. You can volunteer your time in exchange for food and a place to stay on a new continent. You can be good company for a long drive as a hitchhiker, making your way across a border and into a new country. But more importantly is the fact that travel itself is more valuable than money. And for that simple reason is why travel is so popular.
“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”
Money may buy you fancy things that you’ll eventually replace. Money may buy you a plane ticket to somewhere new. Money may buy you some of your dreams. But it will never be as valuable as travel, for there are many things that money can’t do that travel can. Money is temporary, but travel lives on forever. It creates our memories, it fulfills our dreams, and it gives us something to hold onto for the rest of our lives. Money can be taken directly from our hands, from our bank accounts, and from our wallets, but travel can never be taken away.
It’s the experience of travel that makes it so rich, so fulfilling, and so addictive. The high from a trip will never be the same as winning the lottery. The excitement of winning the money is not because of the money itself, but because of the opportunities that it opens for you. So why travel? Why is travel is much more valuable than money?
Travel Teaches You
Travel is the greatest teacher of all, providing us with opportunities to learn around every corner. From new languages to cultures, how to deal with new situations, eating new foods, and meeting new people. Travel allows our minds to explore new possibilities consistently.
Mykonos, Greece at sunset.
Travel Makes You More Confident
Exposing yourself to new things will only help to develop your confidence even more. Though you may not realize it, it takes a lot more confidence to go sightseeing in a city that speaks a different language than in your own country. To walk into a hostel room and find strangers whom you’ll be sleeping next to takes confidence. The more you travel the more confident you become.
Travel Exposes You
Travel exposes you to unknown elements, it gets you outside of your comfort zone, it forces you into situations that you’d never have to face at home. This exposure creates confidence, it teaches about yourself and life, and it makes you a tougher, more well-rounded person.
Travel Shows You
Travel shows you what you have to be happy for. Travel shows you what money can do. Travel shows you to be grateful for what you have, what you’ve seen, and what you take for granted.
Travel Builds Connections
Travel allows you to build connections with people. It makes you more sociable, less shy, more talkative, a better listener. Travel allows you to connect with people on a deeper level. The people you meet while traveling give you more of an instant real connection to people and allow you to help see through all the bullshit.
Niagara Falls as seen from the Canadian side.
Travel Shapes You
Travel, with every step, gives you the ability to shape yourself. Travel makes people better. Travel helped you become the person you are now, the confident, world-loving, explorer that you are. Money doesn’t shape you. What you do with that money is what shapes you.
Travel Pushes You
Travel pushes you past boundaries that you didn’t know you had. Take a step outside your comfort zone and realize how much more the world, people, food, and places have to offer. Travel will not only do that for you, it will force you to.
Travel Makes You Happier
Happiness isn’t a thing. It isn’t money. It isn’t material. The happiness you feel from experiences is true happiness. Though you may feel happy about something material for a short period, long-term happiness is a product of experiences that make up your life. Travel itself is a combination of new experiences that create happy memories to last, and in the moment happiness.
James Bond Island, Thailand
Travel Makes You More Appreciative
Regardless of where you’ve been, on a luxury vacation, or in the dingiest hostels you’ve ever seen, travel will make you realize that you have it good. You may not live in a fancy house, or own nice things, but travel will make you appreciative your home simply because it’s yours and you love it. It will make you appreciate what you have in your backpack and the people you have in your life.
Travel Makes You More Adaptable
Travel will make you more easy going, more adaptable to situations, and more willing to do spur of the moment things. There are plenty of benefits to doing spur of the moment things alone, never mind how many benefits there are with being adaptable. It will allow you to experience more, do more, and see more.
Travel is lots of things. Travel is important. Travel is perhaps one of the most beneficial experiences that each person needs to have at least one time in their life.
Travel affects you in ways and does things for you body, mind, spiritually, and health that money will never be able to do.
So when you’re dreaming of your next vacation and tell yourself that money is limiting you, remind yourself that money is only a small speed bump along the way and that it does not control your decision to travel. There is always a way to make more money. There is always a way to travel. You may just need to be a little bit creative.