Your Love Affair With Travel

It's no secret that I love to travel.

And my guess is that since you're reading this, you would like to travel more than you do right now.

To this day I can’t say I’ve ever regretted a trip I’ve taken or a travel experience that I’ve had. Of course, hindsight will tell us we’ve always made the right decision in choosing to travel, but there’s also that thing inside of all of us that asks, what would hurt if I didn’t get to do this?

All I’ve ever known is travel. I flew on an airplane for the first time when I was six. By the time I graduated college and developed my travel career, I had traveled abroad extensively and had been to all but a handful of U.S. states.

Since travel has always been such a significant part of my life I sometimes wonder, why do we actually turn to travel?

Nearly anyone who’s ever had the chance to see foreign (and not so foreign) lands will tell you; we’re all looking for similar things and traveling takes us out of our every day, changes our routine, and gives us the chance to see even the most mundane in a romantic way.

Travel also forces us to deal with the uncomfortable, the unplanned and sometimes the awkward. Just think about it, we turn to travel because we're okay with going out of our comfort zones.

Travel requires us to surrender to the fact that it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s more about finding the time to just be.

After all, the world is a small place and you can find moments of absolute wonder, but I bet that you might also find that spark to pull the haze from your eyes and reframe your heart and mind with how "staying home" - both personally and professionally speaking - is just not an option.

This is one of the main things travel has taught me, along with a few other things: 

• Life’s short. Don’t feel bad about wanting the life you want (not the life you should want).
• Don’t be busy as a way to just to fill time.
• It's okay to slow down.
• What you own shouldn’t own you.
• One bag is enough (really).
• Everything changes. That’s a good thing.
• Traveling can enhance your career, it's not a hinderance to it.

So, I'm curious...

What have you learned from your travels? Why do you travel or want to travel even more - both personally and professionally?