When I started writing this I looked around the newsroom and yelled, “If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?” My coworkers gave various responses: Spain, Australia, Japan. But one colleague said he’d go home to Chicago, as he’s been in Minnesota for some time now.

My coworkers knew exactly what they would do if they could pack their bags and head to the MSP terminals tonight. For one person, he’d fly home because being in Saint Paul was already an adventure outside his comfort zone.

Traveling outside your comfort zone is important and an experience with no equal. You think you can know a place by watching videos or reading a textbook, but it takes all five senses to appreciate a place and the lessons it can teach you.

Traveling outside your comfort zone differs for everyone. It’s leaving the community you resonate most with and exploring a place beyond. This could be somewhere within your own state and the U.S., or a new country.

Within the U.S., we have an abundance of geographical and cultural regions. You could be on a mountain peak in the Colorado Rockies, where you can see wildlife as far as the eye allows, or you could be dropped into the maze of Manhattan, and look up at skyscrapers for seemingly an eternity.

Traveling outside the U.S., the cultural and geographical differences may be even greater.

No matter how you do it, opportunities for growth await when you travel to a new place. Doing so allows you to meet new people and experience other cultures. You’ll also be able to see natural and human-made wonders that’ll leave you awed. Places where water meets mountains like the fjords of Alaska, Norway and New Zealand. Human ingenuity has also engineered amazing achievements like the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Great Wall in China.

Don’t let me kid you. What I’m describing usually isn’t paired with the word easy. Leaving your comfort zone can and will be tough. You may run into a number of issues: miscommunications due to language and cultural barriers, delays and missed transportation links, as well as general interactions with locals.

Last summer I flew to the Pacific West Coast with some friends. We took a rental car from Portland up to Whistler, Canada, and along the way we stopped in Seattle and Vancouver.

Although for the most part the trip went off without a hitch, there were some troubles that came about that weren’t exactly in our plans. We went in the wrong line at the Canadian border and had to go inside to get questioned by border patrol, and we didn’t know our hostel in Vancouver was above a bar. The next morning was definitely a rude awakening.

Although problems like these are inevitable, if you go into traveling with a positive and open mindset, you can overcome obstacles. Don’t let a couple hiccups dictate the whole experience.

As my exercise in the newsroom showed, people want to travel. It’s a desire that’s found at the very center of our human condition. We want to explore and I don’t think the obstacles of our daily lives serve as a sufficient excuse not to. We can’t be deterred by the notion that the world is a dangerous place that’s better seen from your living room TV.

The world is too beautiful and life too extraordinary to be stuck in this mindset. If you have a place you want to experience, whether it be 30, 300 or 3000 miles away, go for it! Plan accordingly, set the time aside and save up the funds.

I challenge people to turn that “I wish” into an “I did.” If you continue to push your journeys further down the line, they’ll never come to fruition. Make traveling a priority. Don’t let yourself sit on a mountain of excuses, instead of an actual mountain.

Zaid Khan can be reached at khan8548@stthomas.edu.