See all Posts in the Wanderlust – A Travel Blog Series
About a million years ago, a dear friend of mine was picked up and moved by his family to Brussels, Belgium. When he invited me to visit, I agreed without really giving it much thought.
The year was 1972, and I had just turned 15 years old. My parents put me on an airplane, and off I went to Belgium. I had no idea then how much this visit would rock my world.
I spent several weeks with my friend and his family in Brussels. My parents also arranged an exchange visit with a French family, so I got on a train (by myself) to Paris and found my way (with some difficulty) to a youth hostel. After wandering around and falling in love with Paris for a couple of days, I met up with my French host, who flew me on his Cessna to their family home in Corsica for two weeks.
From Corsica, I took a ship to Italy and traveled by rail to youth hostels in Pisa, Rome and eventually back to Brussels and flew home from there.
So, what did I learn from all this?
First, and perhaps most importantly, my bedrock assumptions about how things are and should be in the world were blown to smithereens. European history and monuments were ancient compared with ours. Their money was different. Their language was different. Their roads and cars were different. Social norms were different.
Even the food was different. In Belgium, they put mayonnaise on their French fries, for goodness sake! At 15 years old, this blew my mind.
Second, I learned that even though sometimes things went haywire, I could cope. I was given the wrong address for that youth hostel in Paris, but with help, I figured it out. I ran out of money over the weekend in Rome (and couldn’t cash a traveler’s check until Monday), and while I went hungry and slept in a park one night, I survived it. The airline was on strike when I was ready to come home and I still got there OK.
This trip changed my perspective, my sense of the world and my sense of myself. I knew immediately that this change in perspective was an important part of my education and that I wanted to see more of the world. That sense that I could cope with challenges inspired confidence and made me who I am today.
Since first traveling abroad in 1972, I have visited every continent and more than 110 countries. Some trips were with a backpack and a tent. Others were business travel, river or ocean cruises, family trips with small children in tow and even service trips in developing countries. I learned something from each of them.
This is the first in an ongoing series of travel articles through which I hope to inspire you to see travel as a tool for enriching your life and changing your perspective. If you have travel questions or a perspective you would like to share, I would love to hear it.
Bon voyage. And try some mayo on those fries.
