There was a time when the only routine I could think to do on a weekend was sleep, eat and repeat. After working like a slave all week, it’s quite natural to think like that, isn’t it? But did it help me feel refreshed on the next Monday? Did all the lazing around help me save my energy and give me a rocking start? No, I still struggled every Monday and waited for the next lazy weekend. Then came a long lost friend in my life who was a backpacker and asked me to join him on a weekend trip. I went with him mainly because I was bored of my lazy weekend routine. We didn’t go to a fancy place. It was just a small countryside village near the city. I did so much that weekend. I sat in the middle of the farm just looking in oblivion, chatted with the locals, ate food with them, shared their stories and slept under the starlit sky. The experience was nothing less than life changing. The next Monday, I was fresh, excited and rejuvenated like never before. The whole week I kept smiling thinking about my weekend, and that was it; I fell head over heels in love with traveling. It’s been 5 years now and I have possibly used every window of opportunity from my regular routine to travel as much as I can. Now, when I look to the life five years back, I am sorry for the time lost. Now it feels as if back then it wasn’t a life; it was mere fulfillment of protocols.
If you’re still the old me and love your couch on the weekends, here are some compelling reasons to get yourself out of it.
1. Travel is your only chance to see the beautiful world
It’s the mindset that matters.
When you are partying, and lazing around you know what’s possibly going to come but when you travel, it’s all about surprises. Every step is a memory and every minute is exciting. If you won’t travel, you won’t get to know how it is to experience a natural phenomenon that drops your jaw in awe. Travel around to know how tastefully God has created the world.
2. You get to know the real you
That’s the best part of traveling. You realize your true potential and many a times you will literally feel, ‘how on earth did I pull it off’. The small things that you never did, will give you mountain sized confidence and immense happiness. The more you travel, the more it evolves you. It changes you by slowly transforming you into a better, more intellectual and mature entity.
3. The concept of weekdays and weekends will slowly cease to exist
Since the time I discovered my love for travel, time has slowed down for me.
I’ve been working in the same organization for over 5 years now and I don’t know how all this time passed by. Travel makes your job a small part of your life and broadens your horizons. The time that was initially trapped in the frame of weekdays and weekends slowly disappears and all that’s left is living every moment to the best.
4. Traveling increases your productivity
I’m not joking. The best thing that travel has done for me is that I’ve learned to enjoy every tiny minute as an experience. When you discover the secret of finding joy in your experiences, it’s natural for boredom to fade away. Travels unveils the art of looking at your everyday work as an experience which doubles up your productivity and in turn, your results.
5. It boosts up your confidence and gives you a sense of inner freedom
When you start traveling you realize you were not born to just do things the way you’re told. A new side is unveiled every time you travel. With all the new experiences, hiccups and memories, travel teaches you to love yourself and be proud of what you are.
6. Travel makes you more social, compassionate and yes, a better judge
Even if we try not to, we end up acting and behaving the same way every day. Travel opens up a world full of different people who don’t act or look like us. They are diverse and inquisitive. The more you meet new people, the more you get out of the comfort zone and realize how much goodness you can extract from others.
7.It makes you humble and more rooted to the ground
Traveling is probably the easiest way to realize it’s not always about you. The more you travel, the sooner you’ll realize how little you know about life. The world is way too big compared to how you perceive it. Meeting different people, facing situations that you never dreamt of and looking at the spectacular beauty all around the world makes you humble and a better person in every way.
8. Travel teaches you to cope up and be comfortable with solitude
The most important thing you learn while traveling is to enjoy your own company.
With every new experience, you learn to respect and love yourself, your thoughts and your personality, because they continuously evolve. You are no longer predictable (in a positive way:). Travel makes your heart and mind fall in sync with each other. You struggle less while making decisions and learn to listen to your own self.
What travel teaches you goes far beyond what I can describe in words. It sets you free from the monotony that society calls a way of living. It ends up being a constant search of finding happiness in new experiences, because it teaches you to live every moment as an experience. Bon Voyage!
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Author: Aaparna Sisodia
A free spirited girl who loves to eat and talk about street food. During spare time, she loves to read, travel, and experiment with ingredients in kitchen.
