Weekend Travel: reasons to experience different destinations

On this Sunday of a long weekend (Thanksgiving Day in Canada Monday), let's explore some of the benefits of travel.

Travel is a change of place, an alternative experience, a break from the daily routine.

The New York Times offers an interesting photo project on experiencing different destinations, which I'll link to in a second; but first, here are some good reasons for moving around:

See things from a different perspective. We humans share one planet. Travel helps us view the world through the eyes of other people. We learn quickly that we're not all that different from one another. Sometimes we find that others have already solved problems we've been pondering with no success for some time.

Going someplace new also stimulates the mind. We suspend our routine thought patterns and freshen up the mind. ( We touched on this in How to foster creativity a couple of weeks ago)

Travel is a great way to recharge energy levels. Everyone has different needs. Some of us need quiet time in solitary pursuits, others feel the need to socialize with new people and maybe even speak a new language.

Now, to the The New York Times initiative: the paper has a wonderful photo essay appropriately called, "Why we travel" that captures personal reflections and images showing people in many corners of the world as they're experiencing life on the road. It offers great insight into our interactions with one another and with the environment, whether the location be urban or rural. The Times currently has 41 perspectives in the slide show. They're all worth reading. Click on Why we travel.

(Photo 14, by the way, is taken in Chicago and echoes the entry here last Sunday).

If you're looking for more reasons to leave your home for a few days, you can look over Larry Bleiberg's Seven Reasons to Travel published in the Dallas Morning News.

CNN has an interesting article explaining why this is the best time of the year for unbelievable travel deals. Some resorts are giving away free nights in accommodation and other favourable incentives. See The staycation effect: 5 reasons to travel now.

And since this is October, another quick reference to Fall: a friend of mine in Vancouver told me recently she missed Autumn in Ontario because in British Columbia many trees are evergreen and you just don't see the variety of colour you do in the central and eastern part of the continent. Thinking about the note the other day about leaf colours, I thought you might like these photographs submitted by readers and viewers to CNN's iReport.

The photos above are by Duilio Zane. Many thanks.

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