Why you really should travel while you’re “young and able”.
I’m sure you’ve almost certainly heard the saying “travel while you’re young and able” and how you shouldn’t worry about the money, as money can be made later and the experiences are far more valuable than money ever will be, right? While this is completely true, I want to dive a little deeper into this topic and why I believe it’s important that you travel young.
First, let me give you a little bit of background on a story about my grandma. Ever since I was a little girl, my grandma always talked about how she dreamed of going to one place-Ireland. Her ancestors were all from Ireland and her mother used to tell her all about how beautiful the place was, all about the history there, and how lovely the people were. It was the only place she ever wanted to go. I remember her talking about Ireland with so much passion. She could talk all day about if you let her. She didn’t care to go anywhere else, she just wanted to make it to Ireland and see all the places her mother had told her about.
June of 2019, I helped make her dream a reality. We took the trip to Ireland! I’d never seen her so happy when we finally bought the tickets! At age 72, she was finally getting to see the one place she had dreamt of going all her life. (Look how happy she is)
The one thing I observed, aside from how happy she was to finally SEE Ireland, was how exhausted she got. This trip required a ton of walking. She’s 72 years old, so this was pretty difficult for her to do. She is also pretty healthy, so that wasn’t the issue. There were points in the day where she didn’t really even want to do anything else because of how tired she was and I could see how sad this made her but there was really nothing she could do about it. Seeing this really hits you in the feels. I know if she had made it here 50 years ago, she could have enjoyed herself a lot more. At the conclusion of the trip, she had said how grateful she was that she was finally able to step foot in Ireland, but she doesn’t think she could travel internationally ever again.
So, that’s brings me to this-why exactly are you waiting to travel? What are you waiting for? I know a lot of people think they need to wait until retirement, but you have no idea what state of health you’re going to be in. How much energy are you going to have after retirement? You have absolutely NO IDEA what the future holds. You can’t predict who is going to be there 50 years down the road to share that experience with. That is why I think it is so important to get out there now, while you’re young and “able” as they say. I never quite understood what that “able” part meant, but seeing it personally really opened my eyes.
If you have dreamt about taking a trip somewhere, I am urging you to do it NOW. Make that dream a reality while you can. It’s either now or maybe later. You can make your money back, but you absolutely cannot go back in time. The experience you are dreaming of will be so much easier to make NOW.
Travelling Jellybean 