Traveling is a privilege, which we feel grateful for every day. Many people don’t have an opportunity to travel, for a variety of reasons, so we feel lucky that we’re able to visit new places and experience different cultures while we’re young and adaptable. With this knowledge in mind, we feel especially motivated to make the most of this year.
Specifically, we designed this year of travel to focus on creating a creative education. We’re actively meeting new people, working on side projects, and looking for opportunities to learn and practice skills.
Although it can be tough to balance career development with life on the road, we’ve also found a lot of unexpected ways that traveling has made us more creative. Here are some of the reasons why travel, from short day trips to longer vacations, can help give a creative push.
You’ll process time differently.
“Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it.“ – Joshua Foer
The more you expose yourself to novelty, the more time feels stretched out. That’s why, after you return from a trip, you usually feel like you’ve been gone for ages even if it’s only been a few days. It’s also why your childhood summers or holidays feel so much more significant and impactful than your adult ones. Time, literally, slows down, and you realize that your experience of time is relative.
For us, we feel like we can remember vividly the things that we’ve done on our travels—even if we’re just eating breakfast or working in a coffee shop. Meanwhile, at home, it typically felt like the weeks blurred together, and we couldn’t clearly distinguish one from the other. It varies between countries, too. We felt like we lived a lifetime after two weeks in Morocco, while our time in Portugal passed by in a flash. It’s likely because the former was such a drastic change in culture and environment, while the latter was more similar to our life in the United States.
Beyond the feeling of time slowing down, you probably will have more free time when you’re on the road. Without your daily routine, you inevitably fill your time with different things. I’ve been reading significantly more this year than I have in the past few years, even though I was an English major in college. I’ve also been taking a lot of online classes (favorite resource has been Skillshare) and immediately applying what I’ve been learning, which has been exciting. It’s really been reminding me that you learn from doing.
You’ll have more space to think.
At home, I felt like I could never really turn my brain off. I was constantly processing information, whether I was reading, listening to podcasts, or checking email. It felt like I just had to keep my mind occupied, for whatever reason, and I wasn’t very intentional about what I did or consumed.
Coming home from work, I also experienced a lot of attention residue, my mind continuing to linger on whatever happened at work that day, even when I was working out or cooking dinner.
Since I’ve started traveling, I’ve found my mind has naturally started to clear, like my mental pores are opening up. It’s been surprising what has floated into my thoughts: memories, questions, and observations that I never fully processed while I was in the Bay Area.
For me, the best times for reflection have been moments of transit. My favorite ideas have surfaced while watching scenery pass by through a train window or sitting on a plane writing while everyone else is asleep.
You’ll observe things in a new light.
When everything around you is different, you’ll start looking at things through fresh eyes and you become more open and flexible. Even if people-watching doesn’t captivate you at home, the noticeable differences of an unfamiliar place might make you pause and think for a moment. New foods, new shops, and new streets can challenge your way of thinking.
A study conducted by professors at INSEAD and Northwestern University revealed that the longer students spent living abroad, the more likely they were to come up with creative solutions to problems. They found that those who had opportunities to travel thought of more unconventional ways to use typical objects, like a box, perhaps because they had more exposure to new cultures and environments.
You meet people outside of your normal circles.
In a new environment, you oftentimes end up in situations where you learn how others live. I’ve loved times when I’ve stayed in Airbnbs with local hosts, because I get to learn more about a place from someone who knows it best. I find myself excited to get breakfast in the shared kitchen or return home after a long day, because I can better process what happened that day by talking to them.
There are also more opportunities to strike up conversations with strangers. Even if you don’t have many shared interests, you can ask questions and exchange thoughts on the local community and know that you’ll learn something new. It’s also fascinating because you have an opportunity to really reflect on your own identity. When you’re in a different environment, you can focus on who you are in that moment.
You also learn to care less about what other people think. Being far away from home, and knowing you will likely not encounter the people on your travels again, you realize that external opinions don’t matter as much and you feel free to take risks.
Finally, travel can be a great excuse to reconnect with old friends or acquaintances who you don’t haven’t seen in a while. When you’re passing through a city that someone you know lives in, you have a reason to reach out. I also feel like I’ve been learning so much about other cities outside of my own that I’ll be able to better understand the people who grew up or had meaningful experiences in those places.
You learn to break out of your comfort zone.
In a different environment and routine, you can be challenged in various ways, whether it’s trying a new food or hobby or overcoming obstacles like jet lag and language barriers. For me, I oftentimes have difficulty with both giving and receiving ‘no’s, but I’ve gradually gotten better at it. I’ve had to practice declining invitations from strangers or getting declined when I want to take someone’s photograph. I’ve learned that reaction doesn’t reflect the action. Your action in and of itself could be fine, even if someone doesn’t react well—their reaction could be because they have different values, or even because they’re having a tough day.
Facing constant challenges helps with improving our problem-solving and decision-making abilities. It also makes you feel more confident to try new things in your own creative projects as well, because you can adopt more of a growth mindset and feel that everything can be learned.
You gain exposure, which challenges your previous mental models.
A big part of travel is about gaining new experiences, and each time you immerse yourself in a different culture, you are adding to your own mental library. You build your creative vocabulary, which you can draw upon for the rest of your life. You might find yourself naturally drawn to certain things, and then start to see patterns within them as you develop your personal taste.
Before traveling, we had no idea that women in Morocco wove rugs to tell stories, or that merino wool was so valuable in New Zealand. Now, we can reference and make connections with these ideas, and integrate them into our own creative work. It reminds me of the idea of cross-pollination, where you draw associations between seemingly unrelated ideas to break new ground. (More articles on this topic can be found here and here).