Travel experiences: Exploring our need for out of the ordinary places

The Travel Bug – a (pretend) disease which strikes you after you return from traveling. Something which anyone who has done anything out of the ordinary in a different country will probably have. I am not aware of a way of getting rid of the bug, no tablets or cream. Infact a visit to the doctors will not help at all. My first experience of traveling came when I was just 18years old and decided to go away for eight months visiting Mexico, Peru and Australia and volunteering in Mexico and Peru. My need to experience different countries and cultures came from being a child and being surrounded my different languages through an organization which my mam supported the Eisteddfod. I was encouraged to learn new languages and experience different ways of living.

My Grand Gap Year as I called it was defiantly the best experience of my life and I would encourage anyone of any age to go and travel, it does not have to be for a long time – a week, two weeks, a months is enough it just needs to be something which you would not normally do during a holiday.

I was lucky enough to work in an Orphanage, learn Spanish, teach English, work in a school, travel throughout Mexico and Peru, volunteer at a turtle camp, visit Bolivia and New Zealand, live in a hostel and make some brilliant friends.

My need to explore, learn and discover new experiences has not stopped. I have visited many places on holiday and only last month I visited China for one month to teach English. That was an interested experience also.

For those people who have traveled or have the travel bug after coming home from traveling what I have said will make perfect sense.

For those who have never traveled, are considering traveling or will never go traveling – I urge you to try it at least once. Of course everyone is different but I believe the world is so vast, there are many, many countries with many, many different activities to do, sights to see that there is something for everyone no matter where you go.

So rather than book that same holiday to Spain, you know, the same place you have been twelve times or more book a trip to Greece or Germany, experience Paris or Rome. Visit Machu Picchu in Peru, the rain forest in Brazil, the pyramids in Egypt or a walking holiday in Ireland. Experience life because you really do not know if you will be here tomorrow.