If you travel, I am sure you have come around people at the office who say: You are travelling again? Have you not just came back from (insert exotic location here)? Is it not dangerous? Or my favourite at the office is: they must pay you a lot!

Truth be told, I travelled the same amount as when I was 20 as I do now that I am almost 30 and my income has doubled, if not tripled, in the same time period. Yes, I may choose not to stay in hostels anymore but the frequency that I travel has not changed. Therefore, I realize there are other reasons why people do not travel and I have decided to list some of them.

1) Fear – I have often heard people say that they are afraid to fly. In fact, I read somewhere that as much as 10% of people will never step onto a plane and another 40% are nervous fliers. While other peoples’ fears are that they are going to get sick abroad, mugged, or taken hostage. I had a guy tell me you can’t go to Brazil especially by yourself as you will get taken hostage and they will demand that your family/friends send money. I did not know whether to laugh at the ignorance or cry due to the amount of media/movies this guy saw.

2) Money – We all know this is not a good excuse. It can be a country where your dollar will go much further. In fact, one of my friends went to Africa to do an overland tour for 8 weeks to save on rent & food in Toronto. However, people judge hotel prices, services that they like to receive at home, transportation, and flights as an expense that they cannot take as it is a big sum of money. Instead of actually doing research and maybe sacrificing that $100 dinner they had the other night once in a while, they would realize that money is not a good enough excuse.

3) Comfort Level/Interest Level – A lot of time, people do not want to admit that they are not as curious about how other people live, about the art work of historical artists or that ancient ruin. They would rather sit at home watching TV and complaining about how they do not do anything interesting in their lives.

4) Time – People often use the excuse of how they do not have enough time off work or that they cannot leave work for more than 2 days. I manage to take 3 trips a year on a 3 week vacation job. You can tag along long weekends and take 2 days and then you have almost a week off! I also find that when I go on vacation and come back from a vacation, I have the best ideas and it helps me be more valuable to the company I work for. It makes me more focused and I actually finish tasks before I leave that otherwise would have taken me months as I do not like to leave anything undone before I go. You are entitled to your time off and for health reasons, I hope you do take them regardless of if you go lay on the beach or on your couch.

5) Children – There are many destinations where children are not only welcomed but actually built for them. Have you heard of Lego Land in Denmark? Or maybe Disney World in California/Florida? How about children’s clubs in the Caribbean? There could be no better education for children as to see the world with their parents. Is it better to study biology in school or go on a trip to Costa Rica and actually hear specialists in that field describe animals and flowers in the wild? It will also create tolerance towards others and decrease the bullying that is happening around schools.

At the end of the day, I wish more people travelled and understood the wanderlust traveller who wishes to see everything this planet has to offer and to raise children in a world of understanding of the other and living in peace with nature.