Travelling

A popular thing to do is to go on a family vacation, and my family has gone on a few we haven't travelled all over the world, but from those few experiences I have had with family vacations and other trips without my family I have learned the importance of travelling. Family vacations are great, and they are a good starting off place, but the real learning comes when you are older and when, a lot of times, you go travelling by yourself or with a group of friends, people that are your same age. Travelling allows people's minds to be opened. It allows them to experience new things and change their previous ways of thinking. Travelling is a powerful instrument of change.

Before I took my trip to Washington D.C. wars had been wars. They were something I read about in history books or watched movies about. However, once I went to D.C. and saw some of the memorials, especially the Vietnam memorial, my whole thinking about them changed. I realized that there were real men fighting and they really died all because they were courageous enough to say that they'd fight when our country asked them to. The Vietnam memorial was especially moving and heartbreaking at the same time because I saw all those names of the people that lost their lives and it just got to me. It just touched my soul and made everything more real. Without this experience I'm not sure if wars would have ever become something that had just happened in history books instead of something that had happened for real.

Another moving experience came on my trip to New York City. This trip happened about three years after 9/11, and on this trip we went to the site of the twin towers and saw what was left of them. This experience, just like the last one, was eye opening and made things more real. It solidified what had happened in my mind. Seeing things on TV is one thing but then actually going and seeing the destruction in person is completely different. Travelling allows for that change into reality to happen.

My own personal experiences have convinced me that travelling is beneficial mostly because it allows for things to become a reality. Even just going and seeing places is different when you see them in person than just in books. I have so many places on my list that I want to travel to, and I believe that everyone should have places that they want to go and visit as well. Miriam Beard sums up the point of travelling, "Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." I couldn't agree with her more, and I know it to be true.