I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people-Americans and Europeans-come back and go, Ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.
Henry Rollins (via toriethevampireslayer)
when i was younger, i used to hate traveling. or rather, i didn’t mind the traveling part.. just the “being with parents” part, because generally this made for a rather miserable trip, even if we did go and do a lot of not-miserable things. in any case, traveling was not a pleasant experience.
now that i’m older, though, and can travel on my own (even if my parents do insist on family vacations a couple times a year), i enjoy it much more. the downside of family things is that there are a lot of sacrifices you have to make for the sake of others who aren’t as adventurous/getting old/too young. not having to worry about paying for things is nice, but honestly, i’d rather budget myself if i get to do crazy shit that no one else is willing to.
i’m always down for trips with friends, but i definitely wouldn’t mind going alone to places. it always sucks when you think about how the average person doesn’t have the luxury of enough money to travel wherever and whenever they want, especially if they’re still in school. and then interests may change, and by the time you’re old enough to have the money to sponsor these trips, you’re not as willing to see everything you used to. damn, i haven’t seen the curious case of benjamin button, but what if everyone started old and grew young? started with knowledge, money, and experiences, and then degraded but was still able to learn, and at an even faster rate than before? if this was the norm, would it be so bad?
