Travel as One of the Most Significant Ways of Learning - Essay Example

The experiences I gained from travel had the potential to cause personal growth, but only if I allowed them. The trick was to be sensitive to growth opportunities, have a hunger for knowledge, and allow my experiences to take me in new directions. To learn from your mistakes is a common lesson we are all admonished for. Each day offers opportunities to grow; whether we take full advantage of them is another matter. As John Steinbeck said in Travels with Charley, “A Journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”The Africans have a saying, “What is near is dear.” This is very true. However, the ability to encounter other cultures and to appreciate them is also important. Treasures abound throughout the world, waiting to be discovered. Each culture claims unique characteristics and distinctly local flavours. And yet, as a discerning traveller, I discovered common traits as well, such as universal human needs and social constructs to meet them.

But although each culture has similar needs and wants, different cultures have often developed fascinatingly unique ways of meeting them. Relating this to engaged citizenship, as an appreciative traveller, I, by my understanding and appreciation of other cultures, actually engaged in a confidence-building activity that aids the goal of global peace and stability, if that is not overstating it. My own experiences relate to these goals in several ways. An example of how my own travels have helped me become a more engaged citizen occurred during my trip to the state capitol at Sacramento.

It made the operations of state government much more personal to me. What had been a distant and disconnected item in the news now took on a living, physical reality that I could see and touch. This experience connected me more fully with this state’s heritage and history, instilling a sense of pride. It helped close the gap between one citizen and the mighty bureaucratic apparatus of the most populous state in the United States.