How Quality Luggage Help us for Higher Studies while Traveling?
The world is larger than us all. What is in it? What people occupy its lands? What knowledge is accessible to the diligent searcher? These questions and others have propelled great men and women to go beyond themselves to reach new heights and horizons. These same questions are what plague each researcher in higher education, each student yearning for knowledge, both desiring and asking, what more is there to be discovered? In this short discussion, I will examine some aspects of travel that demonstrate its crucial importance in higher education and the effects it has upon the life of a student. First, I will look at the importance of experiencing other cultures and peoples and why that is important, no matter what one may be studying. Second, I will discuss how those experiences change an individual, pulling form personal experience and finally, the opening of the mind to new possibilities as an individual seeks greater knowledge and wisdom through traveling. By these I hope to demonstrate the uttermost importance of travel for students and especially with quality luggage.
Understanding other peoples and their cultures is and should be paramount to how, as human beings, we interact with one another. For me specifically, a student studying archaeology, without traveling, I could not so easily understand the people and the geography of a given area. When I travel, I come to know new people and understand both their life and mine in a whole new way. In a sense, to travel is to live. I love the author B. J. Neblett who once wrote “We are the sum total of our experiences” if we do not seek to expand our horizons then what can we say of our life? When we reach that old age and that time approaches when we begin to see the close of our lives and look back, what will we find? To what end had we lived? St. Augustine once said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel only read one page”. As a student of higher learning and especially one of history, I cannot help but look back and desire to travel to those places that I learn of. Growing up I had learned of ancient kingdoms in Egypt, of Pharaoh and the Nile. There was ancient Greece and its pantheon of gods, Romulus and Remus founding the city of Romethat would one day come to rule the Mediterranean. All of these places and more have I learned about and now I have the chance to go and visit these places for myself. In this changing world, it is hard to say how long these things will last but I will never forget some of my own experiences.
The most recent and possibly the most impactful of my recent experiences was my journey to Petra, Jordan. As a part of my studies I had the opportunity to excavate in Petra, a World Heritage UNESCO site, for six weeks. We excavated at the place that is called the monastery or the Ad-Deir Monument, a megalithic structure that was carved straight from the rock. I fondly remember as I ascended the tight canyon with ancient tombs looming over head, standing as ancient memorials of the people who had come before. The ancient carved steps guiding my way towards the ancient causeway that would take me to the monument. The last steps descend a small passage way that is almost always covered in shadow because of the cleft in the rock through which the pass traverses, but when I turned and saw the Monastery I was breathless. No photo or description could do it justicebut the first time I rested my eyes upon it the awe and wonder was a feeling I will always cherish. Its grandeur and allure will always be with me. Not only did I have this solitary moment of awe but living six weeks with the Bedouins and working with them will be moments that I will treasure throughout my entire life.
Traveling helps individuals to gain perspective on the life they live as well as to gain insight into how other people live. In this modern day and age, gaining this type of understanding is necessary. The media is engulfed in story after story of terrorism and Islamophobia. However, I truly believe if one simply looks to the places and lives that Arabs live, they too could gain a wonderful insight into their culture. A few years ago, as I began my studies, I had an opportunity to travel to Armenia and the Republic of Georgia. While there I performed various acts of humanitarian service. Not only was I able to learn of the local peoples and their cultural heritage and customs but I had the opportunity to meet and help a refugee family from Syria. I was touched and humbled by their frightful story of their flight from their country and their struggle to establish a home in a new and foreign land. During the short time that Iwas able tohelp them, I did all I could but I knew it would not be enough and that I could do more for these people not only abroad but at home as well. Because of this experience I came back to the United States and began to fill my time by helping others, specifically refugees. I would write letters, offer my time and I even learned Arabic so that one day I might be able to help those people again. It also leant me a keen understanding when reading or watching the news as it came out about the various crises in the Middle East, knowing the things I had learned because of my travels. This experience as well as that with the Bedouin in Petra have forever changed my life both personally and academically.
One last reason that I believe traveling to be beneficial is that academically my mind has been opened to so much more than it would have had if I did not travel. In my line of work, that being archaeology, it may seem to quite a few people that everything has been found. But if one travels to different places then it becomes apparent that there is so much more to be found and studied! Not only this but the exposure to other people who think differently is critically in so many fields. History demonstrates this simple fact a thousand times over.
All of this though would not have been possible without quality luggage. One of my happiest memories was one Christmas when my parents gave me a matching two-piece set for my extensive travels. They have served me faithfully for the past nearly five years. My travel luggage plus additional backpacks and other duffel bags have transported the necessities I need for my various activities when I travel.
Today, October 9, 2017, is Columbus Day. Whether this day should be celebrated or not, it marks a critical event with the beginning of the colonization of the Americas. If Columbus had not decided to travel beyond what had come before, to seek those new horizons, America as we know it would not exist. Traveling is the quintessence of understanding life, is not learning and education in a way a form of traveling? Does it not take us away to new horizons and give us new understandings? The insights to life that one gains through traveling will stay with that individual throughout his or her life and will cause them to become better and more enlightened people. We all share in this human experience, we all make up the tapestry that is the diverse cultures and peoples of our planet and to be able to travel throughout it is our greatest privilege and blessing.
