Your twenties are the cheapest, most flexible time you will ever have to see the world. Youth rail passes, student exchanges and working holiday visas are built for exactly this stage of life, and the habits you pick up on the road, from finding your way in a new city to talking with strangers in a second language, stay with you. American writer Jeff Goins summed up the case in three words: adventure, compassion and culture.

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1. Travel teaches you to live an adventure

Goins argues that, looking back, people regret playing it safe far more than the risks they took. His own list is a good example of what a few years of curiosity can add up to: cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge, appearing on Italian television, hiking to a Maya ruin, learning Spanish in three months and touring Europe by train.

Adventure at twenty does not need a big budget. It means saying yes to the overnight train, the unfamiliar dish or the hike your guidebook barely mentions. Every missed connection you sort out on your own and every menu you decode builds confidence that carries into work and study back home.

For a first trip on your own, our first solo-trip guide breaks the experience into manageable steps.

2. Travel opens you to compassion

Goins's second reason is that travel puts real people and real problems in front of you. Seeing the places where history went wrong, such as memorials to genocide and war, or meeting people whose lives are very different from yours, makes the news personal. It is harder to stay indifferent to a place once you have eaten at someone's table there.

The best way to learn is to listen. Visit memorials and museums with respect, read a little history before you go, and spend your money with local guides, family-run guesthouses and small restaurants, so that your visit supports the people you meet.

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3. Travel lets you experience culture first-hand

You can read about the Colosseum or Michelangelo's David, Goins writes, but standing in front of them is something else. The same goes for the Acropolis at sunrise, the call to prayer across Istanbul or a summer evening in a Spanish plaza. Culture is also food, music and language: the things you only absorb by being there for a while.

Pick one theme for each trip, such as architecture, a local cuisine or a language, and let it guide a few of your days. Our learning-through-travel guide has more ideas.

Programmes that make youth travel affordable

Several long-running schemes exist precisely to help young people travel, study and work abroad:

  • Erasmus+. The EU's exchange programme began in 1987 with 3,200 students from 11 countries, Greece among them. More than 15 million people have taken part since, and the 2021–2027 budget is €26.2 billion.
  • Interrail youth passes. Travellers aged 12 to 27 get 25% off the adult price of an Interrail Pass, valid on trains in 33 European countries.
  • Working holiday visas. Australia's Working Holiday visa (subclass 417) is open to 18- to 30-year-olds from partner countries, and up to 35 for citizens of countries such as Canada, France, Ireland, the UK, Denmark and Italy. You can work to fund your travels for up to a year at a time.

Hostels, overnight trains and buses, and travelling in shoulder season keep costs down further. Our tight-budget planning guide walks through the numbers.

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It is never too late

Goins ends with a warning against the "yeah, but" habit: the excuses that keep plans in a drawer. Start small if you need to, with a weekend in a nearby city or a summer exchange, and build from there. And if your twenties are behind you, his advice still stands: the best time to travel is the next chance you get.

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