Some people have travel in the back of their mind but they are not devoted to the idea they need a reason or multiple reasons. Lets not down play the decision to travel to many of us the answer seems obvious but deciding to travel for an extended period of time is a decision up there with buying a house, getting married or having a child. Some excellent reasons came up in the recent 5 Reasons Why I Travel meme.

• Learn about other people, and yourself.
• Gain experience and knowledge.
• Sense of freedom.
• The challenge, and the adventure.
• Make a dream come true
• Do something that most people will never do, but will wish they had done.
• Make a break from the rat race.
• See how varied and different the world really is and how similar all of us people in it really are.
• To live or retire somewhere new.

Travel gives you a lot of time to reflect on things but that doesn’t mean you will be spending most of your time in some type of travel inflicted meditation, you’ll learn as much about yourself as you face new challenges as you will thinking about things that happened afterwards. Travel can be the best thing you do in life but if will be a whole lot better if you do it for the right reasons and with the right atitude. I have to say Rolf Potts, Vagabonding is the single best attempt to put into words what those reasons and attitudes are, buy it, especially if your wanderlust is currently dormant.

The single best reason to travel is the simplest and you have to have it on your list otherwise your wasting your time.

• Because you want to.

All other reasons flow from this one. Chances are if you are reading this it means you are among the richest people in the world with a bit of dedication you can truely make the world your oyster. It would be irresponsible to pass it up, wouldn’t it?