3 Things Travelling Taught Me

As most of you know I love travelling, I wish to see at least half the world before I die. Although I usually go travelling for the sun, for walks along the beach, for staring down at the world from the tallest buildings, for museums bursting with history or the simple pleasure of being hit with a rush of foreign air as soon as I come off the plane, it's also taught me a lot of lessons I wouldn't have learnt living on this tiny Island.

1. The World Is A Beautiful Place

It's so difficult to explain travelling to people who have never been. You can read books or watch movies about the other side of the world but it's very hard to capture the essence. Places like Thailand are a huge culture shock, everything from the thick air to the warm rain, from the deathtrap buses to the mile long streets full of street food and tacky souvenirs are completely different from our western world. It might not be for everyone but it's beautiful.

One of the greatest pleasures of travelling is witnessing natural beauty: watching a sunset on the beach, driving past huge mountains or staring down at blue waves crashing against a cliff. It makes your appreciate the world we're living on. When you see the world like this you can't help but thank Allah from the depths of your heart for a chance to see it. The sad truth is climate change may destroy all this beauty in a few years.

2. The World Is A Bigger Place Than Our Little Lives

We're all guilty of not seeing the world as a huge place full of opportunities. Most of us are stuck in our own little bubble, we forget there is a whole world waiting for us. We could travel to the other side of the world where no one knows us and reinvent ourselves, do what makes us happy.

I guess the easiest way to explain it is by comparing it to secondary school. We all remember what secondary school was like, everything was everyone's business, every little thing you did was under a microscope, and if something bad happened it felt like the end of the world. But then a few years later you go to uni, you don't talk to most people and forget most of the drama or that certain people even existed. Even though our lives wherever we are right now might seem as though that's all there is, we forget there is so much out there and when you travel you see life differently.

3. People Are Going Through Worse Than Us

One downside of travelling is seeing how different people are going through things worse than us. The amount of homeless people I see makes me so grateful for the comfort I am living in. Even people who aren't homeless don't always have the same quality of life as us, we have warm clean running water, electricity 24/7, food and support so readily available to us. Alhamdulilah my life is not as bad as some people, I have uni stress and the usual stuff but travelling has taught me people would literally die to have the life that we take for granted. There are people out there who have to scavenge through landfills to find food, who sell their bodies to feed their family and live on the streets with no idea what the next day will bring.

I am grateful for having the chance to explore the world and all it's beauty. If you ever get the chance, go see everything. If anyone has never been then my advice would be to throw yourself into the deep end and go to a place that feels nothing like home. Yes it will be a culture shock and you might get a little homesick but it's worth experiencing something completely different from your usual life.