The benefits of travelling include improvements to our communication skills, sleep patterns, health and being more open minded.
There are so many ways in which I believe travel has improved my life. Yet, it’s not just me. There’s research to back up my feelings too!
91% of employers recognise the benefits of studying abroad, 75% of executives believe travel is important to prevent burnouts. Plus, an annual holiday can cute the risk of a heart attack by a huge 50%!
From the ways travel opens your mind, to the health benefits and the way in which leaving your comfort zone can improve your happiness, these are the true benefits of travelling.
The Benefits of Travelling
Health Benefits
Health benefits of travelling include better sleep, lower stress, lower blood pressure, stronger immune system and increased life expectancy. It’s funny, because often trips to the airport can feel quite stressful – packing, getting stuck in traffic, that moment you go through security and your heart races for no reason!
However, as soon as you’re on the plane, the adrenalin and excitement kicks in, and then you relax into it. You feel free from the stress of work and home – a temporary detachment. You physically and mentally leave it all behind.
Communication Skills, Confidence and Independence
When I started travelling more, I couldn’t believe the positive changes to my life. I became more confident and independent. My communication skills were forced to improve as I negotiated with people abroad. While I learned some basic Spanish to help me get by in Central America, I still needed to improvise a little.
The combination of chatting to those from another country, using new language skills (which I wasn’t 100% confident about using, but had to!) and a little bit of charades certainly made for an interesting way of communicating with people. I learned a smile goes a long way and that it’s ok not to understand something 100%.
Gradually as you travel more, you become more confident and your independence grows. When you return home, you’ll feel more comfortable dealing with stressful situations and you’ll be better equipped to communicate with others.
Open Minded
One of the big benefits of travelling is becoming more open minded. As you interact with others, experience new cultures and ways of life, you learn about the world. People around the world live totally different lives.
I’ve loved the home stays I’ve done on my international travels, as they’ve given me a real flavour of what the daily routine is like for the family I’m staying with. What do they eat for breakfast? How do they cook? Where do the kids go to school? How do they celebrate birthdays? There are so many differences are you travel the world, and I love learning about them. The more I travel, the more open-minded I become.
Bringing this emotional understanding back home encourages me to be more understanding at home too – an important thing, and definitely a huge benefit of travelling.
Planning
Travelling takes some serious planning. You need to book travel and accommodation, research activities, book tours and get to grips with currency. It involved logistics, timings, maths and a bit of luck!
I’ve always been a bit of a logistics brain and often organise activities, both home and abroad. For people who have never been very strong with this kind of thing, a trip abroad will work wonders. You’ll return home with a love of spreadsheets and planning!
Adaptability and Patience
The more you travel, the more adaptable you’ll become. It’s always interesting travelling to places where timekeeping isn’t a priority. The bus is supposed to come at 12 but instead it comes at 1.15. It’s out of your control, and you just have to learn to be ok with that!
In the UK we live our lives at a million miles an hour, but there are plenty of destinations around the world that live life at a calmer pace. And that’s great to experience! I’ve definitely found one of the benefits of travelling to be this new found patience and ability to adapt at the drop of a hat.
Teamwork Skills
While you might enjoy travelling solo, the best parts about travel for me have involved leaving my comfort zone and meeting new people. The times I’ve been on tours and made friends with other travellers, or stayed in hostels and met new people from around the word.
Travelling opens you up to so many experiences, and one of the best comes from meeting different people from backgrounds unlike your own. As you communicate with them, you not only learn about them but also about yourself. It’s a time to stop hiding behind social media and allowing your true personality to shine through.
What do you think are the main benefits of travelling? Have you just been travelling for the first time? What improvements have you seen? Why do you go away, and what do you gain from it? Let me know below.