Bio Essay, Research Paper
Personal Interests 2
People in general consider traveling as their personal interests. One of my Personal
Interests is traveling. When I was younger traveling quickly became one of my interests simply
because I enjoyed it so much. I have traveled almost all over the world and seen a variety of
different cultures and people. The reason why I chose traveling to write about is because of the
experiences and knowledge it gave me. There are two things that I learned while traveling. The
first thing was that it taught me to be open-minded about people and their culture. The second
thing it taught me which I think is the most important, to respect other cultures no matter how
unusual their beliefs seemed to be.
Traveling is one of my personal interests because it made me a more open-minded person
when it comes to inter acting with people. It also made it more understanding as to why people
act the way they do in there own society and in a society as diverse as the U.S. Before I had any
traveling experiences I thought that I had done everything there was to do and seen everything
there was to see. Nothing seemed interesting anymore and I thought I knew everything about the
world because I had just recently graduated from College. When I got married to my husband in
1975 we decided to take a trip to Europe. This was my first trip anywhere except from traveling
within my country. I was not that excited to be honest I had studied about Europe and didn’t
think anything of it. When we arrived in Europe, we first went to Germany to see my husband?s
sister the first thing I noticed about Germany that everything was so small I felt so
uncomfortable. I thought to my self-how could people live in such small houses. On top of that
all the water they drank was mineral water which I hated. I couldn’t understand why the
Europeans didn’t` drink juts normal water. Another thing that bothered me was that I am very
Personal Interests 3
friendly but it seemed to me that Europeans are not very friendly. That is when I slowly began to
realize why that was the case. I learned that where I came from the whether is very warm which
makes people come out more and interact with each other. The difference with Europeans is that
since it is always cold in Europe people do not go out much therefore they are not so friendly,
that is normal to the Europeans but not normal to people who are not native to Europe. With this
newly acquired knowledge I slowly got accustomed to their society and became open-minded
about their norms and it didn’t seem to bother me much. Then as time went on my husband and I
traveled to, Turkey, Italy, London, Canada, Mexico, China, the U.S. and many more other
countries. As one could see traveling is one of my greatest personal interests simply because it
has taught me so much about other cultures.
Another important aspect of traveling which I like is the fact that it caused me to respect
everyone’s culture. This is a big reason why I chose traveling as my personal interest Because It
helped me not to prejudge everyone based on there culture there race or religion. I feel that
to be able not to judge a person just based on their race or religion it would be a very useful tool
in life. The way traveling helps a person respect other cultures is that it allows you to see first
hand why and how each culture does the things that they do. For example when I went to Mexico
I saw how hard working Mexicans are and I also saw how friendly and honest they are. The
image which one might have about a race is going to be very biest because when people think
about other cultures they always compare it with their own. This causes a person to think that
there own culture is better than anyone else’s and it makes people ignorant which ultimately can
causes racism. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to travel all over the world and
Personal Interests 4
experience other ethnic cultures. It helped me in my field of work because I interact with over
100 people a day and I get to see all types of races, and cultures.
Many people would agree that traveling is not only a way to relax but it is also a very
enjoyable way of learning about other cultures. Most people would consider traveling to be one
of their personal interest simply because of the knowledge one gets about the world. My
personal interest being traveling is very obvious because I like to travel often. The reason why I
enjoy traveling so much is simply because of all the knowledge I learned when I traveled. Not
only did I learn to appreciate what I have I also learned to accept people for who they are. I also
respect people?s cultures no matter how different it may seem to be from mine. The experiences
that I got in life from my personal interest is very useful even today because I can apply the
knowledge to my everyday life.