Coming from a family that travels multiple times a year, I can positively say that travelling is a huge part of my life. I was born in Geneva, grew up in the UK, had a 2-year adventure in Kenya, before settling in Singapore. But a lot of my friends have never lived anywhere other than Singapore, or even travelled anywhere outside Asia. This got me thinking: what benefits does travelling actually have?

Firstly, because I lived in the UK for the first 7 years of my life, I was English through and through. Then I moved to Kenya, where the culture was just so incredibly different. I was meeting new people, eating new food, living in different temperatures, had different rules. I couldn’t go out in the streets anymore, and I had to use a mosquito net. I was introduced to a new culture.

Second, I was exposed to different people. They were very different, with a different language, different accents, different everything. But because I was so young, I didn’t see it as them being different. We were all just people. I grew up surrounded by people of different cultures, so when I came to Singapore with people of even more different cultures, I was already used to it and I was already open-minded and accepting.

Lastly, I had so many new experiences from living in Kenya. Every holiday we would go on Safari with our binoculars and go looking for what animals we could find. I remember the first time I went on safari, I was fascinated with all the animals that I’d never seen before.

Traveling is and always will be a huge part of my life, simply because I was exposed to it at a young age and fell in love with it.