Bless her soul, my mother used to go on and on about travel being the best education when I was young.
I’m sure she would have kept up with this lesson for the rest of my life had the angels not had other plans for her when I was 16.
It wasn’t that my mother didn’t support public education, because she did. She simply thought that the best way to learn about the world was to travel. And I came to learn during my mother’s lifetime, and even more so during mine, that my mother, as usual, was right.
Under my mother’s wings, I soon figured out that an outing to an unfamiliar place would become a great lesson in geography and social studies, with nary a textbook required.
All I’d have to do was open my eyes to see how the land, the economy, and the culture of the people were inextricably woven together. What people ate, what they wore, what kind of music they listened to, what they used to get around, what they used to build their homes, and how they made their living — these were the topics of my non-formal education through travel.
Looking back on all the different places I’ve been to, I feel extremely fortunate. All of my journeys, whether near or far, have helped to shape me and expand my outlook on life.
Growing up in Ontario, I experienced car factories driving urban growth, the silence of wilderness in Shield country, and the 20-some lanes of Highway 401 heading to Toronto.
Summer holidays in neighbouring Quebec and Atlantic Canada exposed me to completely different cultures within my own country.
Moving to the wild rose province in the mid-70s, I’m familiar with Alberta’s majestic mountains, rolling foothills, and sweeping plains.
Trips to western Canada and the U.S. showed me yet other ways of living; some based on fishing, others on forests.
Back in the days when you dressed up in your Sunday best to go on an airplane, I travelled to England, Scotland, Ireland, and France with my mother. That was when I first discovered what a great country Canada was to live in.
In recent years, I’ve been to the land Down Under, and feel more than privileged to have walked sandy stretches of beach on both sides of the Australian continent. And just last month I went on a trip to another beach, this time to the Mayan Riviera on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
This region of Mexico is home to the Mayans, a culture that has been getting a lot of press lately due to the end of the Mayan calendar drawing near in December 2012. My trip included the guilty pleasures of an all-inclusive resort, swimming in the invitingly warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, and visits to the ancient Mayan ruins of Tulum and Chichen Itza.
The latter is now considered one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and includes the great Mayan pyramid known as Kukulkan or El Castillo. Thanks to incredibly well-informed tour guides I learned a whole lot more about “life, the universe, and everything” at these historic sites.
But, the most important thing hammered home to me on this trip is that our world is full of contrasts. I ate and slept in new, ultra-modern surroundings while having the opportunity to visit archeological sites over 1,500 years old. I live in a place where the minimum wage is between $9 and $10 an hour, yet holidayed where the minimum wage was more like $5 to $6 a day. While I enjoyed the luxury of a gated, international resort, dire poverty existed in local communities only a few kilometres away.
My struggle with these widely divergent ways of life made me think: shouldn’t we be treating each other better? Fair trade is one way we can do this. Ensuring affordable access to clean water, good food, safe housing, and education are others.
Travel has proven to me that people all over the world are more alike than not. We seek connection with each other, we love our families, we like to have fun. We are the same but different, the differences being dependent on our surroundings and circumstances.
Being open to new world views through the lessons that travel has to offer us — now that’s in our best interest.
