Learning Through Travel

After teaching for 15 years at schools in South Carolina and Singapore, my wife and I (with our girls) decided to take a sabbatical year. Our girls were born overseas, so we wanted to spend more time with friends and family in the States — plus take other trips throughout the world. I know that we are incredibly fortunate to have these opportunities; we are thankful for the time together.

Traveling has a large opportunity for learning, especially in places that are not familiar. You have to understand the environment, negotiate space, monitor yourself, and constantly evaluate options to make decisions. All of this takes energy and effort, which can be overwhelming — but can drive learning and personal growth!

Challenges

Even though traveling can be great, there are challenges.

Being tired, both physically and mentally. In your normal routine, you have automated many of the daily tasks: How to get places, when and where to eat, activities, sleeping arrangements, and many others. Traveling takes you out of the automation, forcing you to make decisions about every part of your day. Making a bunch of decisions — especially if you are negotiating those decisions with other people — takes effort and energy, which can make you physically and mentally tired. One trip earlier in the year was a nine-day driving trip; we stayed in six different places during those nine days. We were constantly packing and unpacking, plus trying to figure out what we were doing each day — which made us tired. The…