Travel is the Best Education

What an amazing experience: I recently attended a friend’s daughter’s quinceanera. It was such an honor to be invited. Everything was perfect from the religious service to the party….which went well after midnight.

Too often, we just stay in our normal routines: the same route to and from work; the same religious service; the same grocery store; the same restaurants; the same circle of people we have known for years.

My maternal grandfather always said, “travel is the best education”. I would expand the word “travel” to include expanding our cultural horizons in other ways:

1. Eat at the ethnic cafe or food truck you have passed a hundred times.

2. Attend a different religious service or even different denomination from one’s upbringing.

3. Try a different grocery store or just the same brand at a different location.

4. Dine at a new, not-yet-reviewed restaurant. Chances are, the proprietors will be thrilled to have new customers as they work out the kinks of sinking money into their new venture.

5. Befriend the new co-worker or neighbor; introduce yourself to the new person working at your favorite store; “work” the room at a party and be open to new friendships.

We can’t all travel to exotic locales; but what we can do is a version of “shopping in one’s own closet” (which means not buying a new outfit but looking within our own wardrobe at home and seeing what we have in a new way).

We just need to look within ourselves to see if our lives are too bland, too much alike. Are we too white, too black, too Asian, too Latino in our own lives?

Travel… is the best education.