One of the most profound benefits I have found to travelling is a changed sense of what is really necessary. To those of us who live in wealthy countries, like Canada or the US, we are presented with a certain image of what we need, a certain material standard to be happy. For many, this means not doing what they truly want to do, as they instead work long hours to earn enough to maintain this standard.

Then you go to some far off land, and as you look upon a more modest home, you wonder if maybe a different way of life is possible.

If you take the time when travelling to talk to the locals, you will find they are more similar to you than different. One way they are often different - less stress. Oh, they have stress - living in a poorer country isn’t some magical cure to anxiety. But they generally have different stress. It can be a struggle for some to obtain the necessities of life, but once they do - often they are content.

While visiting the island of St. Vincent, I stopped by a friends home. Now he isn’t wealthy, at least by first world standards. He is a hard working man who does his best to provide for his family, but he isn’t competing with Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Yet - he has a view many millionaires would envy, is more active and healthy than most office workers with gym memberships, and has time to take visitors around the island he calls home.

I am grateful that i have had, and continue to have, the opportunity to see more of this planet. But as interesting as the various landscapes, ruins, and cities I have visited are, it is the people I have met who have had the biggest impact.