Views from abroad: Get out and travel

Views from abroad: Get out and travel

Genevieve Guenther

Veronica Wernicke, Assistant Opinion Editor

Welcome back to another edition of “views from abroad.” This week, I want to focus on the importance of traveling, and not just when given the opportunity through studying abroad.

Like I have mentioned before, Stirling is located between Glasgow and Edinburgh, so both cities are a little over a 45-minute train ride away. Given the close proximity of these popular cities, it is only reasonable that I would plan a day trip to each.  

This past weekend I spent the day in Scotland’s beautiful capital, Edinburgh. Early Saturday morning a few friends and I hopped on a train and made our way. It is that easy.

Edinburgh is a beautiful city and it looks like it is straight out of a Harry Potter movie – no wonder J. K. Rowling got the inspiration from here. It was truly wonderful getting to spend the day just exploring around a new and foreign city with good company.

I feel so strongly that everyone needs to travel as much as they can and I have felt this way for as long as I can remember. Traveling gives you experiences and memories that you cannot get anywhere else, and it really does help you grow as a person and as an adult, like trying to find the right train in a large and popular station – what fun!

Traveling provides more than just an opportunity to explore a new place, but it also allows for you to really take in your environment and reflect on yourself.

“[Traveling] helps busy people hit refresh, in a sense. In one survey of 414 travelers, 94% said they had as much or more energy after coming back after a good trip, and 55% who had a low-stress trip returned to work with even higher levels of energy than before,” writer Alexandra Sifferlin said in a Time article.

From all the traveling I have done in my life so far, I can wholeheartedly agree with those statistics. I mean, whoever wants to come back from a trip? You always hear people’s excitement leading up to and during a trip, but never about having to leave and go back to “real life.”

There are also so many lessons I have learned and so many new things I have experienced. I would not be the woman I am today if I had not traveled to all the places I have thus far. There is just something about the air in a foreign place that brings a smile and happiness to my face.

“Travel makes us happy, because it promises us the self-discovery needed to reach the pinnacle of Abraham Maslow’s view of the human hierarchy of needs,” journalist Winnie So said in a CNN article.

You do not need all the money in the world to travel and explore, and you really don’t even have to travel across the sea to be considered a traveler. Take a weekend and just drive an hour outside of where you are and explore.

Between my school work and almost any time I can think about it, you can find me searching for cheap train, bus and plane tickets to take me on my next adventure abroad – it is so much fun.

I have always wanted to travel the world and being abroad in the United Kingdom has only given me opportunity after opportunity between all the cheap train, bus, and plane tickets. Don’t wait to travel, do it now. Get out and explore this beautiful world. You will not regret it.