For many students in the U.S., studying in high school today is easier than, say, a hundred years ago. Indeed, due to advanced technologies which can be used for studying, being a student today is hardly a dilemma. In addition, high school students do not have to rush into choosing their future fields of expertise and entering a university; instead, they can take a so-called gap year, to relax, earn some money, and see what they would like to be doing before studying further. And in my opinion, one of the best ways to spend a gap year (at least half of it) is to travel around different countries.
Travelling is not about simply having fun; in fact, it is a serious survival school, especially for a young person who got used to being taken care of by his or her parents. It does not mean that a teen must cook food on n open fire or sleep in dire woods; actually, in the 21st century, Master Card allows a person to comfortably live almost in any country of the world. By survival, I mean the necessity to make independent decisions and take responsibility for them by facing the consequences. Where to eat or what to cook; which transport is cheaper; how to buy something you need when the retailer does not speak any language you know; where to stay for the night; how to get from point A to point B – these, as well as many other questions a traveler solves every day, and there is no one around to tell them whether their decision is true or false. For a young person, the ability to make life-affecting decisions can be invaluable (TravelStudentsF).
Travelling not only makes a teen more decisive, but also more communicative. When you go to a foreign country, you know almost nothing about it. Even if you have searched some information about it, 90% of it is useless when you arrive to the new place. Therefore, you need help, and the only assistance you can get in a foreign country is from locals; in case if you travel to a non English-speaking country, you should also be prepared for the fact that people will not understand you. This can easily become an emergency case, because even basic communication phrases like “I need a doctor” or “I need help” suddenly become a challenge; therefore, a traveller has either to learn phrases of the local language, or try to explain what they need with gestures. Both ways are fun, and contribute to making a person more easygoing and able to communicate with almost anyone. For a person who has lived for half a year in, for example, Nepal, communicating with English-speaking people after returning back home is easier (IFR).