Advanced Essay #1: The Benefits of Travel

Introduction

The greatest year of my life was when I was in third grade. That year, I traveled the world and I was homeschooled by my parents. That year, I had many truly legendary experiences that taught me a lot about the world and myself. In this essay, I am sharing two experiences from that year that have taught me a lot. One thing that I was exceptionally proud of with my paper was that I put a lot of detail into the descriptions of the scenes. I am also proud of how much thought and depth that I put into the analysis of what the experiences taught me about the impacts of travel on my life. In the future, I hope to go more into depth into the things I learn from much smaller moments in my life.

Advanced Essay

When I was in third grade, I spent the year traveling with my family. One seemingly unimportant event that has stuck with me occurred when I went with my family to a waterpark near Bangalore, India, called WonderLa. After going down several different waterslides, we decided to take a break from the excitement and head over to the wave pool. When we reached the pool, I noticed that there were actually two different pools. On the left was a wave pool for men that was huge, spanning over thirty feet from left to right. Inside the pool was a sea of men jumping around in shorts and t-shirts through waves several feet high. To the right of the men’s pool was a much smaller pool for women and children. That pool was maybe a third the size of the men’s pool, and the waves were only a foot high.The women were wading in brightly colored saris. My dad, sister, and I decided to swim in the men’s pool since it seemed like more fun. We waded, swam, and jumped around in the pool until a life guard appeared. He told my twelve year old sister that she had to go over to the women’s pool. She begrudgingly left the pool and stormed over to where my mom was sitting. Though I thought it was strange and unfair that she wasn’t allowed to swim in the big pool, I just continued wading around.

In hindsight, I realize that one of the most beneficial things about traveling is the opportunity to observe different cultural and societal norms. When you live in the United States, you tend to think that the American way of doing things is the correct way. However, when you travel, you get to see that many nations have very different customs. When I was young, I sometimes perceived the customs of the places I visited as unfair, inferior, and ridiculous, and in some cases, that was certainly true. However, the same thing can be said about a lot of social rules in America. In the years following that year of travel, I would sometimes view American culture and society through the lens of a foreigner. I realized that social rules are never completely logical. Though to my nine year old self, and to many other Americans, the gender segregated wave pools may seem unjust, unnecessary, and somewhat illogical, I later came to realize that the same thing can be said about many societal rules in America, particularly those regarding gender. In addition to allowing me to view American culture from a different perspective, travel has also increased my sense of connection with and interest in the larger world and the places I visited, even years later.  

One day, when I was nine years old, I hiked up an active volcano with my family in Guatemala. We got up incredibly early and drove for an hour or two until we arrived at the base. When we got out of the van, we were swarmed by a bunch of young boys trying to sell us walking sticks. We rejected their sales pitches one by one until we reached the path up the volcano. We then started our hike up.

The path up the volcano was incredibly steep. It was a dirt path with greenery on both sides. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that I was just hiking in the forest. After hiking up for an hour or two we finally reached the highest point that we were allowed to go. As we exited the vegetated portion of the mountain, I was hit with a sudden wave of heat.

“The sun is so hot up here,” I complained.

“It’s not the sun, it’s the volcano,” my dad answered.

The area near the top was a barren wasteland of pumice. There were rocks of many different sizes piled up everywhere. I looked to my left and saw flowing lava.

“Oh my god, that is flowing lava!” I practically shouted. I found a gap between two rocks, and my sister and I roasted some marshmallows. After hanging out at the top for a while, we descended down the volcano.

A few months after I had left Guatemala, I heard my mom shouting. “Come upstairs, you have to see this!” I ran up the stairs and hopped on my mom’s bed. Vulcan Pacaya, the volcano, had just erupted. I stared at her laptop screen as red molten lava shot up from the crater of the volcano. Though the only person who had died was a foolish reporter who got too close, the damage was devastating. In that moment I realized that the new understandings and emotional connections with the places you visit last long after you leave. I thought about all of the boys that tried to sell us sticks, who lost their homes and everything they owned. To me, the volcano was an exotic attraction, but to them the volcano had been a force of destruction that they had been living next to for years. Had I not been to the volcano, I doubt I would have cared much about its eruption. In America, when we hear about devastating events that don’t affect us, we tend to say “That’s horrible” and then continue on with our lives. However when you actually visit places you start to pay attention to events that occur in those places. You pay more attention to the news about those places and actively seek out new information.  When you travel to places you get to learn about the culture and society of that place when you are there, but, it also increases your investment in the events of the other countries in the future.