Can Travel Make You A Better Person?

Travel does expand your horizons, to use a cliched phrase, but can it make you a better person? I ran across a headline from Smarter Travel that said "10 Trips That Will Make You A Better Person." I couldn't resist. I thought they would all be volunteer-type trips where you volunteer your services and get to see that part of a country as well. We've take several of those including a trip to Paris to work on renovating an old movie theater into a church.

All of the trips mentioned were not just volunteer labor although helping Haiti or an orphanage in Viet Nam would be very self-rewarding as well as providing some relief to those organization and would certainly be worthwhile no matter what your motivation. We certainly enjoyed our recent venture of planting trees in a New Zealand preserve for penguins.

There were also trips that were taken to improve mind, body and/or spirit. A hiking and wellness trip in Peru or a spiritual growth trip for women in Israel.

The one that caught my eye though was the tour to Whitmuir Farms in Scotland which shows you everything from farming techniques to cooking secrets to get the most out of your produce. Apparently Lily the sheepdog leads you along the trails that go through the 300 year old farm and you can meet the sheep and pigs and have a meal at the restaurant. There is supposed to be a Food School but I wasn't able to locate information on the Farms' website. Ah, well, it's hard to teach an old cook new tricks anyway.