Travel has been sorely missed during the pandemic. With plans put on hold for the foreseeable future, millions of intrepid souls around the world have missed out on exciting adventures, new memories, and unlikely friendships—all those good things that come with traveling.

It’s no surprise, then, that appetite for international travel is high right now. According to Amadeus, more than three quarters of people intend to travel in 2022. With any luck, we’ll all be able to travel safely again soon, and reap the many rewards that travel has to offer.

When that time rolls around, it’s more important than ever that tourism is managed sustainably. This means protecting host communities, which are now endangered by the dual threat of commercialization and climate change.

Through sustainable travel, it’s possible to enjoy all the benefits associated with traveling while supporting local people and the environment. Continue below to find out what you stand to gain from travel, especially when it’s sustainable.

The Importance of Sustainable Travel

We usually think of travel in purely self-serving terms. There’s nothing wrong with this—most of us travel for personal pleasure—but it’s important to also consider the impact that your trip will have on other groups.

Sadly, many great international travel experiences come at the expense of the host country. However, it doesn’t have to be this way; sustainable travel actively benefits local communities and the environment, securing a positive outcome for all parties—not just tourists.

What is Sustainable Travel?

Sustainable tourism, as defined by the UN’s World Tourism Organization, takes full account of “current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities".

Sustainable travel programs are engineered to conserve rather than erode the cultural heritage of local groups, while also providing them a valuable source of income. Environmental protection is likewise critical.

While delivering various benefits to host communities, sustainable tourism also offers visitors a more culturally immersive and enriching travel experience than resort-based tourism.

By connecting with local people and learning about their culture on a deeper level, sustainable travelers are more likely to create memories and develop as a person—it really can be a formative experience, especially for students.

Learn from Travel works with local groups across Latin America to deliver rewarding study abroad experiences that benefit visitors and host communities. Explore some of our sample programs below:

5 Powerful Reasons to Travel

We’ve made our case about sustainable tourism, but what can you gain from travel? Continue reading below for five compelling reasons why travel is important.

1. Travel is good for your health

Have you ever felt burnt out with the daily grind, in desperate need of a holiday and a change of scenery? Travel is a great way to escape routine, giving you the time and space needed to unload any chronic stress and renew your zest for life.

When you return home, you invariably feel refreshed to take on new challenges—that’s because travel allows you to hit the reset button. We all need the occasional break to keep our mental well-being in check, and there’s no better way to do that than to travel abroad.

With such an emphasis on the mental health benefits of travel, it’s easy to overlook the role it can play in keeping you fit. Swapping the sedentary lifestyle that most of us are accustomed to for sightseeing, hiking, and other activities will do wonders for your physical health.

meet different people through travelling

2. Travel introduces you to different people

Travel forces you to leave behind your tribe (albeit temporarily) and engage with people from different walks of life. On this journey, you’ll encounter new ideas, opinions, and personalities that’ll open your mind and improve your cross-cultural communication.

It’s not uncommon to forge friendships or even romances while traveling. Tied by the shared experience of being far from home, total strangers will often form deep connections together. If you can speak the local language, opportunities to build relationships are even more plentiful.

Enterprising travelers can also take the chance to network with local business owners, academics, and recruiters. Making the right connection might just open the door to an international job in the future.

discover new interests through travelling

3. Travel helps you discover new interests

At home, you live through the same values and customs every day; the large chunk of human culture exists beyond your native borders. The internet, of course, has broken these boundaries in the last couple of decades, but only travels allows you to truly see other cultures in action.

When you explore these cultures first-hand, you open yourself up to a kaleidoscope of new experiences and potential interests: different music, local food, cultural events, traditional pastimes—some of which you may find yourself warming to.

It’s not just cultural interests: travel facilitates other activities, like hiking or watersports, that may not be possible in your home country. Once your trip is over, you can extend the joys of travel by taking your new interests back with you and incorporating them into your lifestyle.

4. Travel aids your self-development

Travel is daunting. Swapping a familiar existence back home, with its comforts of friends, family, and routine, for a foreign culture in a new country takes guts. That said, stepping out of your comfort zone in this way is one of the best things you can do for your personal development.

Each journey reveals something new about other people, other places, and, crucially, yourself. You learn to become more open-minded with every interaction, and each stressful scenario solved (trust us: there will be a few of these) turns you into a more confident person.

Travel also builds on a wide range of soft skills including leadership, communication, problem-solving, and creativity—all of these will help you better navigate the professional and social spheres back in your everyday life

5. Travel creates life-long memories

Through thick and thin, you’ll always have your memories to reflect on fondly—and by traveling, you won’t ever find yourself in short supply. From the most spectacular sights to the mundane interactions with locals, travel leaves you with moments to cherish for life.

This especially rings true when traveling with friends, with whom you can recount your shared experiences abroad for decades to come. But even solo adventurers will find themselves inundated with new entries to the memory bank.

For the especially sentimental travelers among us, photo albums and souvenirs can help cement these memories. For adventurers without any memorabilia, the mere mention of the country’s name will conjure up those timeless moments in the mind, as if they were yesterday.

Traveling the World Responsibly

Travel breeds good health and happiness, introducing you to new experiences while making you more appreciative of the things you already have in your life. However, this means little if host communities are hurt in the process.

The most rewarding travel experiences—for visitors and hosts—are those that are sustainable, protecting both the local environment and local cultures. Without such an approach, communities that have been eroded by unsustainable tourism for decades will finally collapse.

It’s the responsibility of all travelers to build a more sustainable future to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Learn from Travel works with local groups across Latin America to deliver sustainable, community-focused travel experiences for students. If you’re interested in our sustainable travel programs, you can contact us here.