6 Reasons you Should Travel the World for Six Months

Yes, this is obvious to everyone but consider the problem of our cultural norms. We work during the better part of our lives with the dream or retiring in our 60’s to travel the world. At that age, the idea of flying for 14 hours in coach sounds worse than a POW camp and we’ll be filled with more prescriptions Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club. Why not travel now while you’re mobile and healthy. Additionally, you’ll be able to reap the rewards of travel for much longer which I’ll get into next.

BA, BS, MS, MBA, JD – with so many options our lives are filled with diplomas. Pieces of paper that prove, “you did it!” But how valuable are these diplomas? Yes, I support continual education, but I don’t believe the you can only receive education from an accredited university. Traveling will help you develop countless skills, such as; negotiating, budgeting, and decision making just to name a few. It also allows you to experience different cultures which will help you understand different perspectives when you return to your job.   You can learn so much more about a culture by eating lunch with the locals than you can by reading a wikipedia page.

It’s amazing how important certain things become when you’re traveling. The opposite is also true when you’re traveling. One of the best gifts vagabonding gave me was how to eliminate clutter from my life. Before we traveled I thought I had a pretty clean and simple home, but as soon as we decided to travel, we donated bags and bags of useless items. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to throw out an old nostalgic t-shirt when you’re deciding what you want to carry on your back for the next 7 months. This cleansing process allowed us to see how lucky we are. In our society, the idea of “keeping up with the Jonses” is easy to be caught up in. We continually want more and are unsatisfied with our current possessions. This attitude builds regret and jealously.  Traveling the world allows you to gain a new perspective on possessions and the value they bring to your life.

Everybody wants to travel. Well, not everyone, but most peoople always dream of the idea of traveling the world. When we told people about our plan we received some standard responses of shock, “wow, I would love to do that.”  It was amazing how interested people became in our project.  Several friends actually planned trips to meet us in other countries.  The smiles that people had on their faces when we talked about our trip was an additional validation that we were making the right decision.

You can never logically rationalize the decision to travel the world. There will always be a reason to prevent you from leaving, you have a job, own a home, or haven’t saved up enough. If you allow yourself to be ruled by these negative thoughts you’ll never have the satisfaction of traveling the world.

To start vagabonding is like jumping out of an airplane, you’re always going to be scared before you jump and it takes a little blind trust in others to get you out the door.

You need to vagabond for yourself. This is an experience that no one can explain to you through a youtube video or instagram picture. There are things you must smell, taste, and feel. This journey will be scary and emotional. You will likely laugh and cry throughout your trip, but experiencing these emotions will help you become a more fulfilled person.

Vagabonding isn’t for the light hearted, it’s for the adventure seeking, life pursuing, trail blazers who want the most out of life.

– Now ask yourself, does that sound like you? If it is, leave a comment below!