WHY TRAVELLING FOR THE SAKE OF IT CANNOT HELP YOU MATURE

I am sure you have seen social media posts of travellers and so-called ‘influencers’ who go around the world and share their experiences. Their posts are often accompanied by famous quotes that glorify travelling as a guaranteed pathway to personal development and mental maturity. It has long been part of many cultures to believe that travelling can broaden one’s horizons and lead them to personal and social growth. However, according to some people, this idea may have become obsolete.

One of the reasons why a lot of people believe travellers do not necessarily mature while roaming the world is that they do not discover any new thing of significance. Today’s world is so connected that one can find reviews and pictures of a café in a remote area of a country on websites like Trip Advisor. It seems that technology has not left room for Marco Polos of the future. In the not-so-distant past, travellers actually discovered new places, things, peoples, etc. Their discoveries would lead them to self-reflect along their long journeys, and the self-reflection would help them mature. Today, most travellers travel by plane or other fast transport on safe roads to destinations they have already read enough about and seen multiple pictures of.

Another difference between modern travellers and old explorers is the level of difficulty endured during their journey. What helps a traveller mature is experiencing the physical suffering of moving thousands of miles on foot or horseback and the unexpected hazards that the journey may have in store for them on the way. Today, the only danger that threatens travellers is their naivety. In recent years, there have been multiple reports of naïve travellers who were kidnapped, hurt or killed because they were too trusting of the locals in the dangerous countries they were not supposed to be travelling in anyway!