Travel & Creativity

I’m doing double duty this month during the A to Z Blogging Challenge. Here at Heather Erickson Author/Writer/Speaker, I will share ways to increase your creativity. I’ll also be doing the challenge at Facing Cancer with Grace, where I will share posts that focus on caregiving. I hope you’ll visit me at both sites. While you’re here, sign up for my email list. Today’s post is T is for Travel & Creativity.

One of the coolest ways to increase your creative thinking abilities is to travel. The distance on the map isn’t nearly as important as crossing the cultural divide.

Creativity is Connection

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”     —Steve Jobs

By taking the time to experience a new culture, intimately, the things you think of as normal are suddenly just one way of doing things. I’ve experienced this firsthand many times. The first was when I was 16 and traveled to Spain for a summer. It was an amazing experience that changed my life forever, giving me a broader perspective.

Travel in India

Later in life, I traveled with my husband to do missionary work in India. The modern missionary perspective is less about changing cultures to look like your own and more about seeing the beauty in foreign cultures, crossing the cultural divide and sharing our love of Christ. On that trip, I fell in love with the people of India.

Travel in the Middle East

A year later we traveled to the Middle East where we focused on ministering to the persecuted church. We spent time in West Bank of Israel, where Christians are a small minority in the land where Jesus was born, lived, and was crucified. The Christians there are caught between the cultures of the Jewish Israelis and the Muslim Palestinians. We visited Morocco where it’s illegal to be a Christan. And, just after the “revolution”, we were in Egypt, where my husband was able to smuggle Bibles and we ministered in house churches. In every place we visited, we met incredible people facing things we can’t imagine as Americans. We also saw unique ways of overcoming obstacles.

Honk if you Travel in India

Travel by car in India could be a harrowing experience. The first night we were there we wondered if we would survive the journey from the airport in New Delhi to our hotel. I’d never heard so many people honking their horns. I wondered why they were so angry. When daylight came and we headed off to Chandigarh I noticed the signs on the back of many of the vehicles on the roads. They said, “Horn Please.” I asked about this and was told that many vehicles didn’t have side mirrors or blinkers, so this would warn drivers that you were about to overtake them on the road. Even though having 5 lanes of cars driving on a 3-lane road took some getting used to, we noted that there was always a way out of a traffic jam.

Don’t Honk if You Travel in France

On our way home, we had a 28-hour layover in Paris. The first 4 hours were spent in a cab, driving the 20 miles to our hotel. This cab ride was serenely quiet but amazingly tense. We inched along at a snail’s pace as the meter accumulated charges. Everyone stayed in their own lanes and not a single person honked. I wanted to scream, “Surely you can squeeze between these lanes. Just honk, will you?” I didn’t, but I could see how quickly I’d begun to think like an Indian.

Travel changes you

When you travel to learn about different cultures you are changed. You see new perspectives and new ways of doing things. The deeply ingrained connections in your brain are suddenly rerouted to create new ones. This is how travel makes you a more creative, and often a better person.

While you’re here, sign up for my email list to get a periodic email newsletter to encourage your creativity.

What are YOUR thoughts?

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About Heather Erickson

I am an author, writer, and speaker and homeschooling mom of 3. Since doctors diagnosed my husband, Dan with stage IV lung cancer in 2012, I’ve focused my writing and speaking on helping cancer patients and their families advocate for themselves and live life to the fullest, in spite of their illness. My goal is to help people face cancer with grace.

My books The Memory Maker’s Journal and Facing Cancer as a Friend: How to Support Someone Who Has Cancer, are available at Amazon.com.

I also blog about living with cancer at, Facing Cancer with Grace.