How You Can Change the World Through Travel

The Remedy to Ignorance

The benefits of travel are immense, but how would the world be different if everyone had the opportunity to travel?

Traveling is one of the quickest and most effective ways of learning about the world around you. How many people have traveled to the Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Himalayas, the Amazon, Mayan temples, or the scared city Jerusalem? Anywhere you go in the world is an opportunity to learn about the culture there and challenge your own ways of thinking. The more you travel, the more you’re exposed to and your view of the world matures to a more wholistic one.

“People’s ignorance shows in what they’re afraid of”

Jessica Little

I sat down with a travel and lifestyle blogger Jessica Little from It’s Jess a Little Blog to talk about her experiences with travel and how it has changed her. Jessica is an expert traveler having been to 26 countries that stretch from 5 different continents. She writes about some of her experiences and tips in her blog. In between stories of her adventures in Morocco, the Seychelles, Tanzania, and other exotic places, Jessica was able to identify some of the ways in which travel has changed her. “It made me more confident” she said, “I know you can drop me anywhere in the world and even if I don’t know the language I can find my way around and be ok”. You get to see other cultures first-hand and these experiences help you navigate the world around you. Learning about different people and cultures makes you see the positive in everything and the beauty in our differences. Jessica identified fear as the main cause of ignorance. “People’s ignorance shows in what they’re afraid of”, Jessica said, “It is the barrier to understanding other people”. The best way to overcome fear is to learn about it.

“The world would be a better place” Jessica said “If everyone had the opportunity to travel”. It would instill curiosity instead of fear in people about differences and would help people relate to each other. People wouldn’t be afraid of different cultures, countries, or religions because they would be more knowledgable about them. Knowledge It would make people see the world as a community instead of individual countries and help tie them to social and environmental causes that don’t necessarily directly affect them. “Seeing such a variety of people and places” Jessica said, “would make you more understanding of people and not assume the worst in everyone”.

Traveling has opened Jessica’s eyes to some universal truths as well. With a little smile on her face, Jessica told me the story of the flamboyan. On a trip to Tanzania, she was driving in a bumpy bus through a lush rainforest with other students and her eye was caught by a colorful tree that populated a lot of the mountain. Over and over again she saw it and realized that she recognized the tree. It was the national tree and a symbol of pride in Puerto-Rico where she was from. She couldn’t believe that all the way across the world she found an environment and a plant that tied her to her home. She told the guide about the tree and its meaning and importance in Puerto-Rico and they talked about the similarities for a while. She asked the guide what they were called in Tanzania, a country more than 8 thousands miles away from her home, and the guide said that those bright red trees are called Flamboyan trees. Her eyes opened with surprise, they were called the same thing in Puerto-Rico! This small experience opened Jessica’s eyes to a universal truth; people are the same. We all live different lives but we are alike in more ways than we are different. If a tree could be called the same thing in two drastically different countries than maybe people could also be the same no matter where they come from.

Traveling is about recognizing that there are differences between all of us but also looking for the similarities that will connect us. A smile is the same in every country. In an article in the Seattle Times titled Traveling Opens Your Mind and Heart to then World’s Challenges by Rick Steves says, “Traveling thoughtfully, especially in challenging times, is one of the best ways to put current events in perspective. It forces you to see that global victims or poverty and natural disasters aren’t just faceless statistics in a newspaper, but humans. You can’t help but feel empathy”. Travel would make humans more understanding, adventurous, empathetic, curious, and more willing to learn and that is why travel would help the world become a better place.