When you start traveling, you always promise yourself to go back to the places you saw. The experiences you make in your home far away from home will stay forever. Every time you think back to the time you remember the people you met, the food you ate and the places you saw. So what happens if you go back to this “Magical Place” that lives on in your memories, even after years?
When you go back to the place you once loved so much you are excited and full of expectations. You recap everything you learned there and you thy to make this experience there as great as the last was.
But sometimes you will be disappointed because of the high expectations and the second visit rather opens up your eyes and shows you a side of the place you might have never wanted to see. Do not forget we are all only human and humans can forget. Sometimes, the good experiences overshadow the bad and all what we are left with are wonderful memories of a place that never used to exist.
Traveling does that to you, it gives you memories and excitement but it sometimes gives you as well disappointment, especially when the things you remember are not the same anymore.
But what does traveling give you then? Should we not all rather stay in what we know and can grasp? Isn’t it better to stay in our comfort zones in order to prevent us from such disappointment?
Well, traveling is a phenomenon not only due to the places but as well the people. People you get to know, you get to learn about and might even become to love. Thus traveling does one big thing to you: it makes you think. It widens your horizon and it helps you understand. Understand other cultures and perceptions and tolerate other perspectives. It makes you embrace diversity instead of winding away from it.
So as much as traveling can disappoint you in certain ways (heartbreak not excluded) – it can lead to so much more. Not only for you, but think about the person you have met as well. You might not only widen your horizon but you are able to widen the horizon of others as well. So go ahead and travel, think, experience, accept and tolerate. You need it as much as anyone. And it might actually lead to the unexpected.
– By our regional intern, Johanna Ziesing – World Youth Alliance, Middle East
