This link highlights some great benefits of volunteering abroad to enrich your CV and offer the experience as a way in to a new career perhaps “volunteering-abroad-could-help-with-starting-a-new-career“.

I know that my travel plans are about personal and professional development for me, although most people are seeing my ‘year’s travel’ as an extended holiday, doing nothing but sitting on a beach!  This was a revelation for me.  Nothing could be further from the truth from my own perspective because sitting on a beach even for a few hours would drive me wild with frustration and boredom!   I have never done that on holiday, not by the pool, without children to offer my ‘relaxation’ some structure!  I am prone to sunburn too, so that would mean sitting under cover for most of it, worrying if I go in the water and future health scares I picked up mainly in Australia from relatives and friends!

However, I am going to relax. My visions include sitting at a street cafe in towns or cities watching the locals go by, wondering about them and their lives, learning about their cultures and meeting both local people and other travellers from all over the world, too.

My other vision is volunteering – with elephants in particular, but only because that seems a more prolific option abroad in Asia – and they are cute, aren’t they, for their strength and size?  But other animal care has piqued my interest – looking at volunteering with whales, counting, monitoring activity, sailing alongside them – wow!  What an experience that would be!   I have heard about other sanctuaries for cats and dogs abroad, but that’s too much like home for me.   There are many others, and for children too that appeal, but this is something to sort out in due course.

My other ‘career’ focus on my travels will be developments for my business.   Writing an updated business plan, thinking about other projects I’ve been considering and moving them on, planning for the developments I have as my goal for after the year out travelling. This will be an opportunity for personal growth, and professional options perhaps;  it will be a chance to see how other cultures work, why and why not, and the impact.  It will also highlight my own situation, my own culture and beliefs and my own self-awareness – things I prize highly in my life and my business.    This is the key reason for travelling – to learn about other people and lifestyles.

Why?  Because I’ve learned that self-awareness leads to awareness of others in turn, and improves understanding, tolerance and empathy for others in our world.  The whole world, or our local community – or our friends and family, work and colleagues, society in general.

And it can work the other way around too therefore so awareness of other cultures increases my awareness of myself.   Again, for what purpose?  This time it offers me the chance for growth and development, improving on who and what I am now, opening up options and opportunities that I might never have known otherwise.

This is why I want to travel ….