Traveling makes you a better person Part 1: Problem Solving

Traveling the world means constantly solving problems. No matter if you just have to figure out how to get from place A to place B on a given budget or if you have to find your way out of the jungle at the dead of night, let alone when you're assaulted at knife-point. The life of a traveler works in mysterious ways and never ceases to challenge the full spectrum of your abilities. It pushes you to the very limit of the feasible and just when you begin to grow as person, it pushes you beyond. 

When I was younger, everybody told us that succeeding in school is vital for us to level up our skills necessary for a prosperous life. To be good at math meant to be good at problem solving. I was good at math, but was I any good at problem solving? What does it even mean? 

So when I left school I was considered a good problem solver and university (electrical engineering) promised to make me an even better one. And all the internships I did as an engineer, wow, I had to be a problem solving genius. Except that there were no problems to be solved in the first place. School, university and job was a dull series of promises hailing you as a top-class problem solver. I never did acquire any real skills, mostly for the fact that the only task you were ever given was repetitive paper shuffling. It was tedious and boring. 

It was only then that I started to travel, thanks to the free time university was giving me (that's really the only thing I thank university for). I was 20 and went to India with a friend of mine. When I arrived at the airport in Bangalore I was so stunned by the thought that it was only me and my backpack over the course of the next few weeks. Going from the airport to the city center was the biggest challenge of my life dwarfing any mathematical calculation I had ever done in school. Suddenly you had to find a taxi or should you better take a rickshaw which is cheaper but possibly more dangerous. Is the wooing cab driver a fraudster because his methods appear so aggressiv or is this just a cultural thing? What about the money, the ATM is broken and the rate in the exchange office is so high. The problems were everywhere and solutions nowhere to be seen. So you simply do something, learn that it turned out awful in most cases and try to do better next time. 

Somehow we managed to survive. We convinced a local fisher in Hampi to take us to the other side of the river with dying fish gnawing at our tooth after being stranded on a river island just after escaping the sphere of a river crocodile. We fought giant cockroaches and rats with pepper spray before lying flat down because it backfired and knocked us out (I'm now convinced that it can kill people). We enjoyed our crammed sleeper class train journey until someone began vomiting all over the place. I lost my camera with all photos gone forever just before accidentally stumbling onto a military base where we were greeted with weapons aimed at us.

...

Finally, we even accustomed to the spicy food, just before ending up in the Dubai medical center, flights canceled, because of a food poisoning at McDonalds.

This trip changed me forever. I started to question the notion that formal education prepares you for life. I failed so badly at even the simplest of things like ordering a chicken without cilantro (I hate the taste of it) or reading a map. The experience was so exciting, so unique and I learned so much about problem solving. Now, when confronted with problems here in Western Europe I can better put them into perspective. Most of them appear so ridiculous that the Indian slum kids would tap their foreheads at you. 

From that moment, traveling became an obsession for me. Everywhere I go I try to push myself to the limit. Every time my problem-solving skills are getting better and every time I find that the solutions are coming with more ease. But I'm still agitated when I hitchhike with a truck driver to a remote place where the only chance of going back is at the whim of a rare passing car and the alternative is being stuck at an isolated Andean glacier. 

I think traveling is the ultimate test of your problem-solving skills. There is hardly any other activity that poses such a wide range of challenges. Maybe one day companies will realize that and ask you about the last country you traveled instead of what university you attended. 

Stuck at Pedra Bonita after sunset because of the beautiful Rio de Janeiro skyline. The only way down is a 20 minute walk through the jungle. You have no headlights. What are you going to do?