Educational benefits of travel, part two

live/study abroad, why we travel — By Bob Riel on May 24, 2006 at 1:30 pm

Two months ago, I wrote about a contest being sponsored by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in which he wanted to take a student with him on a future African reporting trip. Kristof has now picked a winner, journalism student Casey Parks of Mississippi. In a Tuesday column, he reports that he and the lucky winner will journey together to Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

He also makes another plug for the importance of travel to a good education:

One of our country’s basic strategic weaknesses is that Americans don’t understand the rest of the world…So, for all the rest of you who applied for my contest, see if you can’t work out your own trips. Or take a year off before heading to college or into a job.

…be aware of the risks, travel with a buddy or two, and carry an international cellphone. But remember that young Aussies, Kiwis and Europeans take such a year of travel all the time – women included – and usually come through not only intact, but also with a much richer understanding of how most of humanity lives…

In the 21st century, you can’t call yourself educated if you don’t understand how the other half lives – and you don’t get that understanding in a classroom. So do something about your educational shortcomings: fly to Bangkok.