Why Travel?

On Thursdays I get to help out in the 9th grade English class with an awesome teacher. She clearly loves to teach English and is good at it; she brings in YouTube videos and songs to make the lessons more meaningful and fun for her students. She also manages the herculean challenge of keeping thirty-two 14-year-olds on task.

On this particular day the students were learning about explorers, like Marco Polo as compared to modern-day travelers. Please appreciate that I kept my composure as a professional teacher while the students learned the word diarrhea. Yup. Diarrhea. The teacher merely explained that this was "an illness", with no specifics on the dirty details. Having traveled before and had some pretty wicked cases of traveler's diarrhea, I could barely keep from laughing out loud as the students listened to me say diarrhea and repeated it over and over and over. The classroom resounded with the word diarrhea for approximately five minutes during which the teacher and I were the only ones aware of the specifics of what they were saying. I deserve a small medal of honor for my adult-like composure.

Next the class discussed why people explored during Marco Polo's time and why people might travel now. For Marco Polo, the students discussed learning about new cultures, opening up new economic markets and spreading religion. When discussing why someone might travel today, they talked about looking for jobs, for marriage and for fun. In some ways, I felt as though the discussion did not do justice to the reasons why I travel.

I have been to various parts of Europe and the Middle East. I have traveled abroad for as little time as a week and, until now, the longest has been a college semester. The major factor that sets me apart from the travelers the students were imagining is that the vast majority of my journeys outside the USA have been on study abroad.

My very first time traveling abroad was when I was 16 and had the incredible chance to travel to France with my high school French class. For someone who loves French, (the language, the food, the history, the poetry, the people) France was like an amusement park designed just for me. The newspapers were in French, the menus were in French, entire bookstores were filled with French books and someone had even convinced the small children to speak French in high-pitched little voices. Awesome! Plus I got to see some of the most amazing museums and sights in Europe. The grammar I learned in class became meaningful and quite important. History and culture from textbooks became a lived experience. It was incredible and wanderlust seeped in the moment I stepped off the plane.

One of the major reasons that I chose St. Olaf College for my undergraduate degree was its excellence in study abroad. I had the opportunity to learn over the course of a January term and a whole semester. I wish I'd had the time and money to do more.

Study abroad is not the same as being a normal tourist. Although you may go to similar sights, you enter into the travel experience in a different frame of mind. This is not a vacation. Attempting to learn as much of the language as possible, even just enough to say please and thank you, is key as you're hoping to learn about the people and the culture. I always carried a small notebook and pen so that I could take notes during tours, at sights and even in restaurants or on the street; using my notes to inform my homework assignments, papers and projects. I wrote reflections essays in hostel rooms and had to make space for textbooks in my 50 lb suitcase. I craved to understand the language, the people and the culture. I sought to understand the similarities and the differences. Studying abroad as an Anthropology major is particularly rewarding since the field is designed around examining and seeking to understand human beings, it is full of tools to suspend judgement and find meaning.

My history as a student of study abroad means that I cannot travel without seeking to understand. My goal is to learn as much as possible, to try to understand, to hear the perspective of someone else. Travel can be particularly illuminating about one's own country and culture. Suddenly things that seemed normal appear bizarre. Why do Americans eat so much processed food? It doesn't taste good. It's not good for us, farmers, animals or the environment. Not everyone eats so much of it, so why do we? Travel is illuminating for realizing our place in the global context. The immense power of being American is invisible only to Americans. Everyone else knows better than we how much power we have; economically, politically, militarily and in terms of our media.

Travel is a fantastic medium for learning and that is why I travel. Although I may have my bachelor's degree, by no means am I done learning. Study abroad will always be my mindset for travel.