Show us an activity you enjoy doing. Tell us how you think it contributes to your personal and professional development.

1. IE Application | Express Yourself
Terri Mortrud

2. SHOW US AN ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY
DOING.

3.  Satisfies a desire to experience something different, learn
something new and connect with another culture
 Often treated as a dream or fantasy – a departure from daily
life
 Except for a lucky few, traveling to distant lands often
remains a dream for any number of reasons:
 Financial limitations
 Family obligations
 Work
 Etc.
TRAVEL

4.  I have had the travel bug for as long as I can remember – how
do I ease the symptoms and incorporate this activity into
everyday life?
 Maintain a traveler’s mindset in daily life
 I travel on a daily basis, however to a much lesser extent than
what this term traditionally entails
 Much more accessible on a day-to-day basis
 An exercise in creativity, open-mindedness and attention to
detail
TRAVEL
CONSTANT EXPLORATION

5. Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of
everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its
setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel
does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to
it the sharp contour and meaning of art.
Freya Stark

6. Traveling turns life into art, when the novelty of a location
heightens your awareness of your surroundings and harnesses
an appreciation for everything around you. Your eyes are opened
to that location’s beauty in every form: people, architecture,
food.
When we “return” to our everyday lives, we lose sight of the art
of life, believing that beauty is found only in novelty. We rush
through each day, too jaded to notice the details and the
nuances of the places to which we’ve already been.
THE PROBLEM WITH TRAVEL

7. To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able
to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a
position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for
granted.
Bill Bryson

8.  Be a traveler everyday
 Treat every moment as something novel
 Wander and pause often – reexamine a place I’ve already been a
thousand times
 Look for details and see things that are often overlooked –
there is always more to a place than what you see the first
time
 Peel away the surface of this place by looking more closely, seeing
things in a new way and finding new layers of an experience
 Explore constantly – turn corners and follow streets one would
normally bypass
 This mindset has led to the discovery of…
HOW DO I SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?

9. …a glass-enclosed atrium with art installations
as the centerpiece.

10. We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and
adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we
seek them with our eyes open.
Jawaharlal Nehru

11. Places have something new to offer every single day, whether it is
different people, a different time of day, a different experience.
Recognizing this and being open to it make it easy to discover
something new, whether you’ve been somewhere twice or two
hundred times; it becomes easy to stumble into something great.
Over time, I have collected different experiences and pieces of
knowledge that help me better understand a place. With specific
regard to where I live, these have helped me to discover what is at
the heart of my city, what makes it tick and who its people are.
Understanding that all things can be viewed in different light is…

12. …essential to forming a complete
understanding of something.

13. Documentation is an important part of this activity as I attempt
to capture the details of each moment, experience and place.
These details foster an appreciation for what makes travel
important to me: discovering something new, experiencing
something different and connecting to the local culture.
Keeping a collection of what I’ve discovered in my own city
reminds me to wander, pause and appreciate everything around
me, much like we do when we travel somewhere new. Doing so
has led to lessons in…
DOCUMENTATION

14. …local history.
Discovered after turning into an alley.
[Public art depicting important scenes in Boston history]

15. …architecture.
Discovered after taking a moment to look above street level.
[A display of the historic architecture in the Financial District]

16. …art.
Discovered during a walk through a local park.
[Graffiti knitting on a public bench]

17. …local culture.
Discovered after pushing through a door that looked interesting.
[Art exhibit demonstrating how baseball runs through Boston’s veins]

18. …local cuisine.
Devoured after stumbling into a food truck contest.
[A demonstration of the rise of food truck culture on the East Coast]

19. People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind
of people they ignore at home.
Dagobert D. Runes

20.  Fosters open-mindedness - pushes me to be experience new
places, people and food
 Seeing life as art (or seeing the art in life) gives greater
meaning to my everyday experiences - there’s always
something more to learn
 Builds understanding of the world around me and the people
in it - helps me to see things in new ways
 Reminds me to be grateful so that I don’t take everyday
experiences for granted
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

21. Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.
Seneca
One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
Henry Miller

22.  Problem-solving skills – seeing things in a new light enhances
my ability to approach problems in different ways
 Attention to detail – training my eye to notice details makes
me more diligent at work
 Communication skills – awareness of the context of a place or
situation helps me to understand those involved, facilitating
more open communication
 Revisiting = iterating, improving
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

23. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
Mark Twain

24.  Personal
 Openness to new experiences – desire to learn about local culture
and language
 Ability to work with a diverse group of people
 Professional
 Enhanced global perspective and cultural understanding
 Awareness of cultural context – understanding that markets and
consumers vary according to their culture
DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF
STUDYING MARKET RESEARCH & CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR

25. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at
last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.
G.K. Chesterton