Most people always think that travelling is just a leisure activity and discount the fact that there‟re so many skills and competencies that you can build when you travel, especially when you travel continuously for six months and more. Here are some of the skills and competencies that you can pick up on the road:
•Negotiation: You learn how to negotiate because you haggle with almost everything. You learn how to use your bargaining chip properly and most often than not arrive in an acceptable price. You learn this whenever you buy something in the market, whenever you bargain for your hostel, transportation and almost on any activity that involves money and other resources.
•Exposure to Diversity: All long term travellers have been exposed to multiple cultures and this lead to better judgement on a lot of things. Prejudice drop against religion, sex, color, race, educational background and other things. This is a very important competency that you can apply on your future business or on your future job.
•Learn a New Language: Some people are so good in picking up words and phrases from different languages and if they just stay longer, they might be able to master it.
•Improve on Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Skills: You improve on these skills whenever you travel because of constant communication to different people. You also learn how to reflect on your own beliefs and perception whenever you get expose to different realities of life. These exposures thus help shape a new and improved you.
•Resource Management: Long term travellers learn how to budget well and how to utilize whatever they have on their advantage. They also learn how to leverage their strengths against their weaknesses.
•Learn fun skills like cooking, diving, snorkelling, spelunking and a lot more.
This is an excerpt from My “Backpacking Tips for Southeast Asia” Ebook. Grab one for free!
I like this post a lot. People never take travelers seriously because they think all we do all day is sit on our bum and drink vodka and redbull. Little do they know that traveling is a major learning experience. I’ve learned so much more in 6 months than all my years in college combined! From political science to geography to international political economy to arts and culture!
And can I include surfing as a fun skill Flip?
i agree with you Lois… i learned so many things from my travels than in my uni (inc my 1 year mba)… and surfing is a fun too!!!
exposure to diversity is very important. this ive learned so much while traveling even within the country.
I agree with the skills plus it’s such a humbling experience too (does Values Education count?) — makes you realize that we’re no bigger than anybody else.
it counts a lot
thanks for sharing your inputs ed
I agree with Exposure to Diversity. I am a bit more open-minded now in dealing with people from different races and walks of life. I actually agree with everything written in this post hehe. It’s a reminder of some sorts too.
Prior to backpacking and living in Asia, I had encountered very few situations where I had to negotiate over the price of something; however, now I’ve become so used to it that when I go back home to Canada I get frustrated over the fixed prices
reminded me when i came home from last backpacking trip too… i kept on mentally computing for prices in us dollars… lol
Traveling is the best way to experience ‘life’.
Great points. I would add: A much broader world view. Although I guess that could be part of diversity. Still, travellers are so much less likely to be narrow minded. Loved the article.