The best souvenir: open mind

Happy Instagram Travel Thursday! Let’s travel around the world through photos from Momondo’s Instagram account. I am totally in awe by a current marketing campaign by travel agency Momondo. The recently launched campaign Let’s Open Our World truly hits the core thought we have been saying for years: traveling opens your mind, brings us as human beings closer and ultimately: makes your life better and the world a better place. Photo by @csabatokolyi – featured on Momondo’s Instagram account. The recent events, at home and aboard, keep dividing people’s opinions. We should be trying to find solutions for bringing our opinions closer together and to find a common ground, but feels like in so many ways we are going backwards, and becoming just more divided. I believe that seeing the world gives you a much wider view also of your own country, own town and your own believes. You can put things in completely new perspective, when you see how things are done somewhere else in the world – whether they are better or worse. It is a sad statistic that only 38% of Americans own a passport, but at least the number of passports is going up, although probably only half of them are being used. In all honesty, this does explain a lot when it comes to today’s politics. It is easy to have misconceptions when you simply don’t know what anything else but your own narrow view. As someone who grew up in a very homogeneous small town in Finland, I’ve always thought one of the best things about the USA is the diversity. Americans actually do have an amazing cultural diversity right in their own country. The opportunities for learning are numerous, and I still do sign the thought that you don’t have to travel far to travel and learn. Often you can learn about different cultures and different people right in your own town. (We did something as simple as going to a Greek festival last weekend.) I didn’t grow up with people who represented different cultures, races, religions or sexual orientation. However, I was taught to respect human life, and treat people as I wanted to be treated. With very simple (and very Christian) mindset, and education about the different cultures and religions, I left my home country to adventure the world 19 years ago. I have been a resident of the United States for 18 years, and by far my favorite thing about America is the diversity; the freedom to be who you are, and being able to find your community of people who share your view of the world – no matter what it is. instagram travel thursday, TRAVEL, world