3 Reasons to Travel While You're Young

I've shared the link to this article by Jeff Goins, "3 Reasons to Travel While You're Young" on my twitter account (follow me on twitter here) recently, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback. It's a great post, and Goins mentions that most people respond to the opportunity to travel while young with a series of Yeah, buts... 

“Yeah, but…” 

"Never were more fatal words spoken:" he writes,

• Yeah, but… what about debt?
• Yeah, but… what about my job?
• Yeah, but… what about my boyfriend (or dog or car or whatever)?

"'Yeah, but…' is pernicious," Goins writes, "because it makes it sound like we have the best of intentions when really we are just too scared to do what we should. It allows us to be cowards, while sounding noble.

Most people I know who waited to travel the world never did. Conversely, plenty of people who waited for grad school or a steady job and traveled still did those things — eventually. Be careful of the yeah-but. The yeah-but will kill your dreams.

Goins goes on to list his top 3 reasons to travel while young:

1. Traveling teaches you to live an adventure

2. Traveling helps you encounter compassion

3. Traveling allows you to get some culture

It's a great, truthful post, and really spoke to a lot of doubts that I had myself about taking an entire six months when I could be finding a job and getting started working towards my career. It spoke to my heart about what I really wanted, when plenty of people are putting me down, saying I'm just trying to "avoid the real world." In truth, I feel like I WILL be living the in real world--what is more real than seeing the world?

I've been so lucky to travel quite a bit in my past, but I don't know that I'll ever get another chance to live in another country for half a year, or take off without worrying about other major responsibilities. I do want to have a successful career and I do eventually want to settle down, and if I'm lucky enough to someday have a family of my own, I won't be able to make big decisions like this based only on my own wants and needs. 

I know that everyone doesn't have the resources to extend their college career by an extra semester just to study abroad, or the support from their family, but I feel so blessed to have both, and I know that I won't ever look back on my life and wish I'd traveled while I was young.

Go read the article, (here's the link again) it's great. Don't just take my word for it.