The Educational Tourist – Why Travel?
This is an important question. Specifically, as the Educational Tourist it should be why do I want to travel? Here are some of the reasons that we have come up with to help you answer the question.
First there is the existential point of view as expressed by Henry David Thoreau, “not until we are lost, do we begin to understand ourselves”, or by Robert Louis Stevenson, who said he travels “just to travel”.
Nicos Hadjicostis, a world traveler, said in his book Destination Earth, “Travel is the ultimate University.” He said, “Travel is a departure from one’s little pond. It is a bold renouncement of the petty comforts that hold us prisoner”. You can get his book at Amazon.
Robin and Cos are a little less existential than Thoreau. Like Nicos, we travel to learn new things, cultures, food and nature. We also want to meet new people who may be different. Although, as we travel, we find more similarities and less real differences. When we return home, we almost always return somewhat different than when we left.
As an educational tourist, if you wish to get other inputs on “Why we Travel”, we suggest you might want to watch Rick Steves video on this topic.
The Educational Tourist – Civil Rights Trail
Perhaps the best example of this is how traveling around the Southeast and following the Civil Rights Trail had a profound impact on us. Robin and I both grew up in the Northeast and lived through the Civil Rights Movement while still in our teens. However, as Yankees, neither of us really appreciated all that went on in the south, until in 2019 when we followed the path of the Civil Rights Trail. In fact, one hidden gem, that was truly inspirational that we visited, was the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and learning about Booker T. Washington. Okay, full disclosure, we were also following the path of the Robert Trent Jones Golf trail, so one reason we travel is to have fun as well as enhance our learnings.
International Travel & Indigenous People
During our global travels, we have also started to learn a great deal about Indigenous People. We are becoming educated about how the countries of the world have treated their First Peoples. We are gathering that information and will be developing a collective comparison of what we learn. Please visit our Indigenous Peoples Post.
International travel brings additional benefits. As a result of international travel, we are improving our foreign language skills which have languished since high school. We have also learned about different customs and improved our understanding of history. Our knowledge of English Irish or French-German relationships, or the Moorish impact throughout the Mediterranean, particularly in Spain, has been significantly improved. For us, as a result of traveling, the world becomes a live classroom in which we are fully engaged.
The Educational Tourist – Impact of Wars
A topic that has been very educational for us as we have traveled around the globe is the Impact of Wars on the various places we have visited. We were horrified by the impact of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. We also learned a lot about the impact of wars in New Zealand and Australia.
