23 Aug The Ultimate Social Experience: Traveling With Friends
I’m enjoying a tasty Expresso, while watching the morning sun warm the crystal clear waters of the Caldera in Santorini, Greece. The sleepy town of Fira is starting to come to life now; shopkeepers and café owners greeting each other, farmers driving horse-drawn carts hauling vegetables into town, dogs barking, motorbikes humming in the streets above the village…
I’m looking at the ash-black outline of the active volcano, ominously smoking in the middle of the Caldera. It blew half this island apart 500 years ago and destroyed an entire civilization. Only a few ruins remain, which Missy and I are planning to visit later in the day…
An old man with a wind-burned face greets me casually from the street below. He speaks in Greek, so I can’t understand the words, but I think I know exactly what he’s saying. “ It’s a beautiful morning.” I reply, by nodding my head and raising my coffee cup. “Yes, it certainly is”.
The air smells different here… The light has a different quality. I have never had a feeling quite like this before, simply because I’ve never been here before…
And think to myself, this is why I travel: To create moments exactly like this… To remove myself from my everyday life and experience a new way of seeing things… To develop an appreciation for other cultures as well as my own… To learn, grow and educate myself… To challenge myself and stretch my limits… And to create a lifetime of memories with the people I love.
Travel is not just about the pleasure, the umbrella drinks, the unspoiled beaches and the relaxing (all wonderful things, by the way!) It’s about stimulating your mind in ways that enhance all 12 categories of your life. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do — it’s the physical act of traveling and the newness you experience that generates new thoughts and new perspectives.
And sharing those experiences, thoughts and perspectives with people you care about in REAL TIME is absolutely priceless.
The most memorable experiences Missy and I have had with our dearest friends have been while traveling. We discovered a long time ago that the best way to get to know someone quickly is to take a trip with them. And when it comes to deepening existing friendships and creating lifelong memories with the people you care most about – we’ve found that travel is in a class by itself. It gives you something fun and interesting to talk about for years and years to come. It forges bonds that can’t be duplicated in any other way.
Traveling creates a kind of heightened experience that heightens your social interactions. The dinner conversations you’ll have with friends while watching the sun set over the Serengeti Plain will differ substantially from those you’ll have at your local diner. Wandering with close friends through the narrow alleys of Beijing or Shanghai will be infinitely more memorable than walking down your own block. Haggling with friends in the crowded markets of Cairo will be a more interesting topic for future conversation than visiting your local supermarket.
We’re so passionate about “travel as the ultimate social experience”, that we stared organizing Lifebook trips, so our Members could travel the world together! Lifebook Members have traveled to Peru, Bali, China, Tanzania, Hawaii, Viet Nam and Morocco together (these pictures are from some of those trips). Each and every one of them has been a wonderful social experience, creating friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.
We’ll be organizing even more exotic Lifebook trips. So be sure to stay tuned!
In the immortal words of Mark Twain; “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Interested in traveling with other Lifebook Members to exotic international destinations?
Click here to take our travel survey and let us know where you want to go!