I used to say, “Just travel, you will grow. It will change you. It’s the best education on Earth.” I wonder now. There is definitely something to be said for simply getting out of your routine, but accomplishing that can be as simple as putting your left leg in your pants first instead of your right.
While it would be a terrible waste of time, money and opportunity, it is possible to travel to reinforce your prejudices instead of question them. If we really want to be right about our world view, travel can’t alter that. We will still be right about our beliefs in how things should be done.
Maybe what would help cultivate personal growth through travel is to cultivate “The Travel Mind.” This is a mind that is open to different world views. It’s a mind that wants to see its own beliefs as beliefs when confronted with a world of different beliefs, like the difference between a Christian church service and rituals for religious ceremonies with horns, gongs and chanting for Tibetan Buddhism. I find in Bali, for instance, that I can’t use logic to explain the process of getting something done. Logic has no meaning there. Blank stares are your reward for lectures on the use of logic, yet they happily survive and make life happen perfectly well without it! Mea Culpa.
