I know what you were thinking when you read the title: “What the heck is ‘wanderlust,’ and what does it even mean?”
Wanderlust — pronounced vahnderloost, for all of you pronunciation sticklers — is a German word used to describe an intense desire to travel. Many liken it to another German word, fernweh, which means “farsickness” or “the longing for far-off places.” Basically, it’s the desire to travel — a lot.
It’s probably safe to say that the majority of us have the desire to travel, right? That desire, in essence, is wanderlust. With this in mind, have you given any thought to where you’d like to go? Most of us would probably say places like Venice, Rome, Paris or New York and would truly plan on going there at some point. Something that we often forget, and rarely act upon, is the fact that time is fleeting. Before you know it, you’ve graduated with your Ph.D. in biomedical engineering — or whatever people are studying nowadays — and you’ve begun your career; you’ve entered a point when life just seems to happen, and you find yourself out of time to travel — to experience wanderlust.
Right now, while you’re in college and haven’t settled into a career, you have more freedom than you’ll have for a long time, until retirement, for most. Grab ahold of it. Pack a suitcase with enough clothes, money and other essentials for a few days; go to the airport; buy a ticket on the cheapest, soonest-departing flight to anywhere; and go.
The important thing is that you travel. Traveling can prove beneficial in numerous ways. For one, you’ve got the all-too-often heard notion that traveling abroad will help you “find yourself.” Despite the clichéd nature of this phrase, there’s a lot of truth to it. Travel exposes you to things that you would have otherwise never been exposed to: social issues like human trafficking, lifestyles completely different from your own, or even a plate of some of the weirdest-looking food you’ve ever seen that you could swear just winked at you. These experiences allow you to learn things about yourself that you could not learn any other way. There’s irony in the fact that by getting lost in the world, you can actually find yourself. As Maya Angelou said, “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”
Traveling allows us to gain some perspective on the world and open our minds to new cultures and new ways of life. When people opens themselves up to these experiences, they come to the realization that we, as a global community, are not all that different. Although miles, generations, worldviews, cultures and race separate us, we have more in common than most people realize.
When you see the world for yourself, you’ll find that — contrary to what is portrayed in the news — people are generally kind and happy. You’ll find that most everyone is looking for the same things in life: love, success, safety and the like. Take the time to forget the stereotypes and develop your own impression of a culture; you may find yourself delightfully surprised.
Traveling abroad is essential to developing an understanding of the world and what lies beyond the “four walls” of our lives here in South Florida. Don’t get me wrong: South Florida is a melting pot, and you can still experience many different cultures here, but it really isn’t the same. However, you can only truly experience a culture by going to its home, be it a bustling metropolis, a quaint village in the mountains, or somewhere in between, and enveloping yourself in it.
Traveling is important to developing oneself and becoming a more cultured, well-rounded member of society. Wherever it is that you decide to visit — Italy, Croatia, France or elsewhere — go now. Time is fleeting, so grab ahold of it and see the world. Channel your inner wanderlust; it’s there, waiting to be brought out.
