Seeing the World is Worth It

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

Are these people actually having fun with travel? Maybe not.

The first time I traveled abroad, I was a college sophomore. I was so nervous on the flight to Amman, Jordan, that I barfed…twice. Perhaps you imagine something more glamorous for world travel? Maybe a luxury for trust-fund kids and their wealthy parents?

I had saved every penny for 10 months to pay for my first trip. I was an archaeology major. I hoped with every fiber in my being that this would be my first excavation of many. I needed to pay for the international flight and two months room-and-board in Jordan, in advance. I was putting myself through college with a part-time library job and student loans (mom or dad never volunteered to pay a dime). I skipped owning a car, buying clothes, or eating anything but bad cafeteria food for my first year of college. I even made a little cash by dumpster diving for aluminum cans back when recyclers paid for them. I sent letters asking for travel donations from distant relatives. The financial challenge of travel seemed completely impossible right up until the moment my plane took off. Those were well-deserved barfs if I do say so myself.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Since then I have done my best to "see the world" by but even after many trips and nations, my bucket list is still quite long. Here are a few things that world travel taught me and why I’d recommend everyone make the sacrifices necessary to see this world. There are many benefits of real travel but these are the three most formative reasons I included my children in travel as early as possible.

1. World travel makes you thankful.

Travel in one’s home country is comfortable stuff. Restaurants, stores, language, clothes, and even social customs are relatively uniform. Aside from unexpected traffic jams, most surprises will be voluntary (Yosemite vs Niagara Falls, In-N-Out Burger vs Skyline Chile, Disneyland vs. Disneyworld).
Travel abroad will stretch your perspectives in ways your perspectives need most desperately to be stretched. Approximately one block from the airport, your travels will begin to show you how much you take for granted. Your little corner of the world is not normal for all human beings.
Breakfast cereal and a big mug of coffee in the morning? Easy commute and plenty of parking for your car? All types of food options for lunch? 8-hour workdays in temperature-controlled cubicles? Fast food for dinner by 6 PM? Single-family home? Virtually nothing about your normal day is normal everywhere.
As you travel you might begin to experience longing and then thankfulness for the small pleasures you regularly enjoy that, perhaps, others do not. Thankfulness, in time, gives way to increased inquisitiveness. Newness stops being scary and starts being desirable.

2. World travel makes you open to newness.

Ever spent time with a rigid person who needs everything just “so”? Not a ton of fun. There will always be those that cling to the details of their personal preferences as if they had been handed down as divine law. I can't say that travel will ever change such a person. As a tour organizer, I can happily say those that encounter new experiences, view them in a spectrum from delightfully exotic, to mildly inconvenient, to occasionally uncomfortable. This is normal and this is what begins to change us.
Depending on your personality and the length of your trip, you will begin to view an increasing number of cultural differences as positive, if not desirable. Italian coffee? Greek souvlaki? Turkish baths? French pastry? Jordanian hospitality? Yes, please!
Travel always makes one more open to newness.

3. World travel makes you more tolerant.

Remember when tolerance truly meant “live and let live”? The more you travel outside of your home country, the more tolerant you must become. It is a natural side effect of seeing life, the universe, and everything through dozens of new lenses. You aren't permitted to go about your day as usual. You must learn to adapt or you won't be able to navigate even the simplest task of eating or getting to your next location.
Travel makes you more tolerant of both inconveniences and people who are not at all like yourself. Travel makes you more open to viewing differences as not only good but often preferable. In turn, I would hope we become more thankful when pleasant days go our way. Can you imagine a world full of truly tolerant, thankful, inquisitive people?

Shameless Self-promotion Department

Join me next year, May 18-31, 2020, in Spain. My husband and I are filling up a busload. There's still time to join now. We use the WorldStrides travel company and they'll arrange financing, flights, hotels, everything. In case you would like to know more follow this link. Our best price ends on October 2. Those who register by then and complete the trip will also receive 1 free Lukeion semester course of your choice (giftable if you don't feel like being a student any time soon).

Student Email Etiquette Primer

Communicating in the Email Age: How Does One Get the Instructor to Answer Emails? 

-- By Regan Barr at The Lukeion Project, The Sassy Peripatetic #30

The subject line read “Welcome to Greek History – Instructions Attached.”
Clearly, someone had hit “reply” on an email that I had sent out several months ago. I was going through my morning office ritual, which begins with wading through 75 or more emails that had filled my Inbox while I was sleeping. I kept scanning until one email caught my attention. “Help! I can’t get into my quiz!”
I immediately jumped on that email. Here was a student who needed my help, and it was time-sensitive. The subject line might be a little over-dramatic, but it did its job; it clearly communicated the nature and urgency of the content and the frustration of the student who sent it. I opened the email, found out what the problem was, and shot back a response that the problem had been fixed.
I continued scanning. There’s another one with a months-old subject line: “Welcome to Greek History – Instructions Attached.” “That’s odd,” I thought, but it certainly didn’t look like a priority, so I kept scanning. By the time I encountered that same subject line a third time, I decided that I was dealing with one of two situations: either someone’s email was malfunctioning, or someone didn’t understand this new-fangled invention called email. I reluctantly and begrudgingly opened the email. “Why aren’t you answering me? I CAN’T SUBMIT MY RESEARCH PAPER! I’ve tried for hours and I sent you a message last night. Now the deadline has passed!”
Well, perhaps using a subject line that was 3 months old wasn’t your best move.
This kind of debacle (complete with accusations of blame, emotional distress, and crushed hopes and dreams) is far too common. Sometimes laziness is to blame, but sometimes people really don’t understand email etiquette. If you don’t want the recipient to completely ignore your email, or worse yet, be irritated by it, you should follow some simple email rules:

1. Always include a RELEVANT subject line.

This is more than just being courteous; it’s also the key to getting the recipient to open your email. Now I know that some people don’t understand this because they only get three emails a week, but gone are the days when people eagerly watched their computers awaiting the “You’ve got mail!” notification. Most people aren’t sitting on the edges of their seats hoping for an email from you. Instead, they’re rolling their eyes at the deluge of email garbage that assaults them each morning when they sit down at their computer.
Instructors, bosses, clients – people who wade through lots of email every day – usually approach the laborious task of email wrangling by focusing on two questions: what needs my immediate attention? and what can I delete without even opening it? An inappropriate subject line can land you in the second category, no matter how important the content of your email.
Those who are new to email are thinking, “Well, how rude! I can’t believe someone would delete an email without even opening it!” The rest of us, however, do it dozens of times a day just to maintain our sanity. Rude is expecting others to perceive the importance of an email that has a deceptive subject line.

2. Always IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

The email read “Mr. Barr, our electricity went out in the storm while I was entering my homework. Can I submit it a second time? – Frodo Baggins.” I was surprised to learn that I had such a famous literary character in my class, so my response was, “Although I’m very fond of hobbits, I’ll need to know who you actually are before I can answer.” The reply floored me: “Well, my mom says that I can never use my real name on the internet.” That makes re-setting homework very difficult.
When sending email to family or close friends, you often don’t need to identify yourself. I know and recognize any email that comes from a family member or close personal friend. But when emailing someone who receives dozens or hundreds of emails a day, like your teacher, your boss, or a customer service representative, give them everything they need to immediately gain some context. I ask my students to give me their full name, class, and time: John Doe, Greek 2, 10:00 am.
When you fail to include vital information, the result is usually a good deal of delay. If I’ve got nothing better to do, I might wander through my class rosters or wade into the student database on a quest to discover the identity of the mysterious sender. But here’s the thing: I ALWAYS have something better to do. My response is usually, “who is this, what class are you in, and which homework assignment are you talking about?” Several hours are usually lost while we play email tag – a game that most instructors really don’t like very much.

3. Always INCLUDE DETAILS.

“Mr. Barr, I can’t see the class recording.” There are many reasons why this might be the case. Here are a few that immediately come to mind: there’s a cat between you and your computer screen; your contact lens prescription is out of date; your computer monitor is turned off; you don’t know the password for the recording; you can’t find the recording link; you’re getting an error message; your power is out because of a storm… should I go on?
There’s simply no way to help this person until I’ve got more information. A lot of time would be saved by simply including that in the first email. If you’re getting an error message, please include what that message says in your email. If your cat is in the way, you’ll have to be creative and solve that one for yourself.
Failure to follow these three rules will result in frustration, wasted time, missed deadlines, and lost opportunities. Perhaps even more important, your recipient may become very irritated. That’s not something you want, especially if the recipient is your boss or your teacher!