In making us less insular, travel makes us more creative

“The same details that make foreign travel so confusing — Do I tip the waiter? Where is this train taking me? — turn out to have a lasting impact, making us more creative because we’re less insular. We’re reminded of all that we don’t know, which is nearly everything; we’re surprised by the constant stream of surprises. Even in this globalized age, slouching toward similarity, we can still marvel at all the earthly things that weren’t included in the Let’s Go guidebook, and that certainly don’t exist back home.”
–Jonah Lehrer, Why We Travel, Panorama Magazine (December 2009)