Traveling can expand your mind, but travel is not enough, and it may not even be required.

The journey is the reward.” – attributed to Steve Jobs

A book called Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, written by Rolf Potts and published in 2002, reminded me of both the benefits of traveling and the benefits of seeing in new ways. Seeing in new ways can be understood to mean seeing:

  • things you weren’t looking for,
  • things you didn’t expect,
  • things you weren’t supposed to see,
  • things you don’t understand, or
  • seeing without trying to understand at all.

Clearly, what you see determines the benefit of travel, and if you don’t see anything new then nothing will change, and what’s the benefit of that? But things are not quite so simple…

Going Someplace

Going to Non-Places

Going Nowhere At All

New Ideas

Ideas that are Never New

Doing the Creative Work

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