"Be kind, work hard, stay humble, smile often, stay loyal, keep honest, travel when possible, never stop learning, be thankful always, and love."
I don't know who this quote belongs to, but I love that they've placed travel right up there with love and kindness when it comes to living a happy and fulfilled life. Everyone should travel when possible - it's fun, forces you to step out of your home bubble and broadens your horizons - but young people especially.
In the words of Anthony Bourdain: "If you're 22, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel - as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live. Learn from them - wherever you go."
But why is travel something best done in your 20s?
Carpe diem
What better time to travel than when you're young? While a scary proportion of my friends are settling down into long-term relationships, buying houses and talking about marriage, generally in your 20s you're not tied down with a mortgage or kids, or much else that hinders your freedom to jet off to exotic and faraway lands. Leave the 9 'til 5 and the grown-up stuff for now - god only knows there'll be plenty of time for that at a later stage - and enjoy your youth while you still can!
Resolve that quarter-life crisis
Or nip it in the bud before it hits you. Travel can help you find direction - something many people in their 20s (and their 30s, 40s...) are searching for in earnest. How are you supposed to know where you want your life to lead when you haven't seen what the world has to offer? One of my all-time favourite quotes: "The world is a book, and he who doesn't travel only reads one page" [St. Augustine].
Take advantage of your flexibility
20-somethings are like Play-Doh - malleable, versatile, adaptable (not to mention HEAPS of fun) - all key qualities travel demands. Being young is synonymous with being laid back, chilled out and happy to take life as it comes, which is just as well when travelling is characterised by unpredictability. The older you get, the less willing you are to push yourself out of your comfort zone, do crazy shit and stay in a cheap party hostel - and there goes half the fun and double the money on what could have been an epic, budget-friendly trip.
Help yourself to some valuable life skills
How did you amass the skills headlining your LinkedIn profile? Work experience and first jobs are great, but travelling is an awesome way to boost your transferable skill set. After catching your hundredth plane, train, bus, boat or tuktuk, you'll be a dab hand at time management. Your communication skills are simply fabulous having met people from all four corners of the globe. And problem solving skills? Bitch please. (Don't say this in an interview.) But after getting yourself out of many a difficult situation - getting impossibly lost, fending off a constant stream of street vendors targeting the obvious foreigner and negotiating culture shock to name just a few - you'll be sitting smug.
Send your self-confidence soaring
Setting foot in foreign soils is an instant confidence booster, especially if you're travelling solo. You meet tons of new people and leap well and truly out of your comfort zone. They say you should do one thing a day that scares you, whether that's getting a tuktuk through the hectic centre of Bangkok or making your heart pound so fast it almost bursts out of your chest during a shark cage dive in South Africa. You'll quickly acquire a can-do attitude which will not only accompany you on your worldly travels but also follow you home.
Do it on a shoestring
When it comes to money, travel may not seem all that possible at such an early stage in life. However, there are some destinations that - once you've sorted the plane ticket - are ridiculously cheap. Good hostel rooms in South East Asia can be as little as £2 and street food cooked freshly in front of you can set you back as little as 60 pence. A good savings account, a thrifty mindset, a dash of determination, a spoonful of motivation and a passion for travel are all the ingredients you need to explore the world on a budget.
If you're still not convinced, take half an hour out of your day and run a Google Image search of 'travel inspiration quotes'. As you might be able to tell from the three incorporated into this blog post (did someone say overkill?) combing through these encouraged me to take the plunge and make the best decision of my life to date!
Image credit: http://standbytraveler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Travel-With-Friends3-600x450.jpg
