4 TEDx Talks that will Inspire you to Travel

When you’re looking for inspiration or positivity, TED/TEDx Talks are great places to start.

If you search for inspirational travel videos on YouTube, you’ll likely be greeted by tens of thousands of results, featuring smiling young faces against a variety of incredible backdrops. You’ll probably find stunning 4k drone footage of awe-inspiring landscapes or remote islands. Perhaps a few montages of people jumping into water, and hundreds of well-edited travel vlogs all to a bouncy, cheery, royalty-free soundtrack.

Those visually stunning videos are designed to inspire people to travel, and it clearly works. Whilst going to all-night drinking parties at a hostel and jumping off rocks into the sea looks like a lot of fun (and attracts lots of viewers on YouTube), there’s so much more to travel than frolicking in the sun.

These TEDx Talks explore the sentiment of ‘travel makes you richer’ in much more depth, backing up these ideas with stories from their own well-travelled lives.

If you’re currently sat at work, thinking of travelling one day, grab a pair of headphones and listen to this series of inspirational travel videos.

So, here are 4 TEDx Talks that will inspire you to travel more:

How to travel the world with almost no money

Tomislav Perko is extremely engaging in this talk. His hitchhiking advice is absolutely hilarious! He really manages to convey the community of Couchsurfing as not only does he couch surf on his travels, he also opened his own home to couch surfers.

He gives really practical advice on how to travel mostly for free. This talk covers everything, from transport, accommodation, volunteering and even getting food for free. He also touches on ways to make money whilst travelling, including how 13 days of work paid for 8 months of travel – definitely worth checking out.

Perko summarised what he learned on his travels in these four points:

• Don’t trust the media,
• Respect the earth,
• Reject your own prejudices,
• People all over the world, we all live differently and believe different things, but essentially we are all the same.

Learn to Travel – Travel to Learn

Robin is a travel writer who speaks here about the benefits of long-term travel. He speaks about “how exposing yourself to new cultures and new ideas gives you a new perspective” and how our “lives are mitigated by routine.”

Robin’s key lesson from his travels is that “wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be,” – whether you believe that our fates are predetermined or not, it’s definitely thought-provoking.

Also noteworthy in this talk: when thousands of people were asked what they regret, the majority said they regretted not travelling more.

So, if you’re thinking of travelling, there’s no time like the present!

Travel More & Buy Less

Luis moved from Mexico to the United States when he was a child and frequently travelled between the two countries. He explains how he felt like “a citizen of nowhere”, but that “Exploration, discovery, and adventure are essential elements of the human experience.”

Luis speaks of the 3 main barriers to travel:

1. Work,
2. Money,
3. Fear.

This talk explores the philosophical debate of whether money and possessions are more enriching than gaining meaningful experiences.

“Making a living and making a life sometimes point in the opposite directions”

Taking a year on, not off

Interestingly, many more Europeans have a ‘gap year’ as a young adult than Americans do.

Jean works with an organisation called ‘Uncollege’, a gap year programme for young people. Like many of the other talks on this list, she speaks about the expectations of society – the expectation to conform, and how travel is to rebel against traditional life paths.

Travelling the world can provide just as much learning and experience as a year in work or education. Those of us who choose to travel – we are not taking time off from work or life, we are choosing to enrich our lives.

So, what videos inspired you to travel? What do you think about the ideas put forward by these speakers? Let us know by leaving a comment below!