The Privilege of Travel

Lately I've been reflecting on how significant travel is in our lives.  I love it.  I think it provides an amazing opportunity, regardless of where you're going.  When BK and I venture off to somewhere new, I would say we try hard to live in the quote above.

I do think travel is a privilege.  In an article I read last year, an author stated that at some point travel would be the ultimate luxury, but only because it requires the most precious commodity- time.  I agree.  Even when we're traveling, we have to work hard to be present with where we are and what we're experiencing.

I'm not sure how the value of travel was instilled so deeply in me, but looking back it seems that my parents made it a priority early on.  Maybe it was the numerous plane trips back and forth from Houston when I was a baby that prepped me.  Probably also the many road trips taken with my mom, sister and grandparents in their minivan.  When in high school, also endless mission trips, church trips, school trips and random family trips.  In college my parents also took us on a number of significant trips (England and Hawaii to name a few). My mom likes to say, "It might have been on a shoestring budget, but I made sure that the girls and I always went somewhere," and I appreciate that. My sisters and I still probably take this for granted, as we are always flabbergasted when people have not traveled.  For example, CMH's (middle sister) husband, who just recently took his first flight, at close to the age of 40- something that seems completely out of the question for us.

I don't think I realized the value of all this travel until I met BK, and only partially because he seemed to gawk at how much some of these things must have cost.  I don't say that to brag, but more to point out what a priority it was to my parents to make sure that we experienced new and different things.  As an adult now, I realize that they also had to make sacrifices to ensure that we had these experiences. Traveling with them, we were never allowed to just stay comfortable, but were pushed to experience new things and really appreciate where we were and that we got to be here. We traveled to Japan in 2008, which I think launched us into wanting to travel more to places that were a little off the beaten path.

If you get the chance to travel- to experience new things, do it.  It's amazing.  Live outside yourself and learn new things.  It's a great experience that you shouldn't pass up.