Backpacking across Europe. Spending the year after high school graduation encumbered by nothing but a travel-worn pack and a map of exotic places. It’s a metaphor for freedom and adventure. It’s a dream for weary high school seniors struggling to finish their last over-scheduled semester and wondering how they will start all over again in their first college semester next fall.

It’s also a real option for students considering deferring their college admission. The number of American students taking a gap year between high school graduation and their first year of college is growing. The Council on International Educational Exchange — a nonprofit founded in 1947 dedicated to promoting international understanding — reports that within the past decade, Harvard University has seen about one-third more of their students deferring their enrollment for a gap year.  Likewise, MIT reported that between 2009 and 2010, their number of deferments doubled.

That year of travel once seemed like a romantic indulgence reserved for the rich and the rugged, but now more and more students like you are putting the college classroom on hold and applying for admission to the real world. While you might feel that travel will put your carefully planned education into an idle holding pattern as you flit around the world, there are good reasons to consider your travel a vital part of that plan.

Travel veterans are quick to point out that travel can teach you several important things you would never learn in school.

Travel Lesson 1: “You are capable of more than you’ve ever imagined.”

Ryan O’Rourke, freelance writer and editor of Treksplorer, says that travel will teach you your limits and is an experience that will have a lasting effect on your life. He writes on the Huffington Post travel blog, “Travel can turn introverts into extroverts, bring confidence to the meek, and create adrenaline junkies out of thin air; it pushes your physical and mental limits, forcing you to quickly adapt to uncomfortable and unfamiliar situations.”

Traveling beyond your comfort zone makes you see yourself in a new way.  You’ll get comfortable dealing with things you haven’t seen or done before: eating new foods, riding crowded public transportation, getting information from the locals in a new language. You’ll start to see yourself as a problem solver — an explorer navigating uncharted waters with ease.

Travel Lesson 2: “Don’t take things for granted.”

Christy Woodrow, travel photographer and professional blogger on OrdinaryTraveler.com says that one of the things travel can teach you is that people in many parts of the world don’t have the standard of living that Americans do. People in other countries often live on a lot less than we do, and it is eye-opening to face those differences.

Woodrow says, “It can be an extreme shocker to see how some people live in other parts of the world. I know a lot of people who don’t realize they have it really good and they complain about everything because they know nothing except their ‘world.’” Facing the contrast can help you feel grateful for the things you have and can help you realize that the world’s problems come in many shapes and sizes.

Travel Lesson 3: “Travelling leads you to appreciate differences and move past them.”

Amurtha Ghate, writer at the travel inspiration site Thrillophilia.com, says that travel exposes you to people who have different values and different ways of life.  As you learn to appreciate the beauty of other cultural traditions, you’ll learn to appreciate differences in people and be able to work with them more effectively.

Ghate says, “As a traveler, you are exposed to cultures and traditions that you may never know existed. As workers from different parts of the country and the world work towards a common goal, it teaches you to be more compassionate towards each other and understand that both your differences and your similarities are what make you work better as a team.”  This kind of understanding is vital for the global workplace that you’ll find yourself in as you establish your future career.

Travel Lesson 4: “Travelling changes the way you relate to the world.”

Sarah Faith Hansen, Lifehack writer, says that it is important to see the world when you are young and to allow the experiences to take hold before the time constraints of family and career make getting away more difficult. Hansen says, “I grew up in a tiny rural town. If I hadn’t had the opportunity to travel when I was younger, I would have a difficult time envisioning much else outside my comfortable country bubble.”

She believes that experiencing the incredible beauty of our planet first-hand make us understand our obligation to be global citizens and help preserve those wonders for the future. Getting bitten by the travel bug while you are young helps assure that you will carry the values you learn from those experiences throughout your life.

 

When you return from your travels, these travel experts assure that you will be more grounded, more confident, more accepting, and more ready to take on the rigors of college. And who knows? It might just be the experience of your lifetime — the experience that clarifies who you are and where you fit in the world.