How Travel Inspires Creativity

Stuck in a creative funk? We’ve all been there. 

Designers, writers, producers, thinkers, entrepreneurs...

As creatives, we are our biggest critics and as people who exercise our talents on a daily basis, we also require the need to exercise those neurons that help us function.

So what to do when in a rut? Make the world our gym and flex that creative energy. 

Travel

The notion that international travel experiences can open our minds to new ways of thinking is not a new concept but an imperative to overcoming any form of creative block. 

Neuroscientists and psychologists have even begun to examine that spending time abroad may have the potential to affect mental change related to how the brain is wired and influenced by environment and habit. It is the one thing that can help us uncover new eras in personal artistic development and provide us with a more accurate and open-minded view of the world.

As a career creative and photographer, I have long felt the creative benefits of international travel. 

However, it’s not just about being abroad. It’s the critical process of multicultural immersion, engagement and adaptation. That’s why each year I’ve vowed to myself, my soul, and my creative mind to dive into these experiences. 

There is nothing as refreshing, humbling, or as scary as throwing yourself into the unknown than traveling abroad - and that freedom feeds directly back into our waves of inspiration and the work we give back to the world. The impact traveling has on one's worldview allows one to do good work. 

Its purpose is to build a strong acculturated sense of self. It has been one of the healthiest ways for me to nurture that creative spark through the cognitive flexibility of environment and human compassion.

“Creativity is power - and we have the ability to use it for good.”

To capture and share my experiences while traveling abroad, I started a journaling practice. Through this I am able to craft storylines through photo, video and written content with the aspiration to inspire others and myself to live outside a world our own. 

This practice has helped shaped how I view the work and message I put into the world - and what a true gift the ability to share with others is.

Photofy has been a powerful tool in my journaling practice and creative work, granting me the ability to spend more time to discover and focus on a message while providing the means to optimize such aesthetic. Here are some of the places I've been and you can see how travel sparks creativity...

Guatemala

A world untouched. 

My visit to Guatemala in Winter of 2014 served as a reminder to be mindful of how I, and we as humans, choose to consume. 

Highlighting the hidden impact our daily consumption has on lands and environments outside our own and the severe importance of doing our due diligence to lessen that impact.

Costa Rica

No words. It’s a scary and humbling experience to be a minority in a foreign country, especially when it comes to language barriers. 

While visiting Costa Rica with Under30Experiences in the Fall of 2015 and traveling to a rural Costa Rican school, I’ve never been so frustrated with not knowing another language. Even with basic to intermediate Spanish speaking skills, it was heartbreaking to not know how to communicate with the children. 

Lesson learned: do not take something as beautiful as language for granted nor expect that others should speak the way you do.

If you’re like me, your creative mind is never fully put to rest. 

For it is when we express our creativity through experiences we allow space for transformation and the nourishment needed to feel refreshed and renewed. 

Those expressions are imperative for us to continue to do good work and supersedes into all aspects of the ways in which we think and operate creatively.