18. Travel provides more education than books.

The fact that I have travelled to about 45 different countries in the world is quite a miracle. As a child, I was quite shy and didn't feel too comfortable straying far from my own yard or little village. Boy, did that change as I got older! My first "adventure" travel was when I accepted a summer job in Ottawa during my university days. Prior to that, I had never been more than a two or three-hour car trip from home. That first step opened up the doors to the world for me.

After my second year of teaching, I booked a seven-week European bus tour and examined for the first time the riches and history of another continent. I visited thirteen countries and I became permanently infected and addicted to travel ever since. My criteria for choosing a travel destination became quite simple: If I had never been there before, I was ready to go. People were quite astounded when I agreed to travel to Uganda to teach summer school to local teachers, the year after Idi Amin had been driven from the country. I survived that adventure and haven't turned back since. 

Later in life, Darlene and I spent ten years living overseas using our teaching bases as the hubs for all kinds of regional travel. They were probably the richest years in my life as I learned so much by living in Turkey, Poland and the Bahamas. You could almost count on learning one new life lesson every other day. I was immersed in a Muslim country for four years and I am far richer for that experience. And that richness continued to grow whether it was in Poland or Mexico.

Much of the learning provided by travel is far superior to book learning. My schooling from grade school through six years of college was primarily based upon memorization of tons of facts and formulas. It was a long distance from the demonstrations of honesty, humility, acceptance, and kindness that I witnessed and experienced in Turkey almost every day. 

Travel not only taught me about many other countries, their traditions, and culture, but more importantly, it taught me an awful lot about myself. I know that I have been blessed by my travel experiences!