When I attended my 7-year-old daughter’s back-to-school night way back in September, each student had written and illustrated their own poster that was hung in the hall outside their classroom. On it, they told a little bit about themselves, and ended with their hopes for the year. Most kids listed things like get better at math or read harder books or play more soccer. Caroline’s said, “This year, I want to leave the country.” Hmmmm, I thought. Where does this come from? So I asked her, “Why do you want to leave the country?” and I got answers like, “Because it’s fun,” or “Because it’s exciting.” Nothing concrete, but the seed of thought that things are different and exciting in places she’s never been is definitely there.

Both my daughters talk a lot about other countries they’d like to visit. There are no Disneyland conversations at our house; China and Australia are the destinations that excite. They don’t even really understand the full concept of country yet, and they still know that new and exciting things lay beyond our borders.

So, what to do with this. I feel that travel is not only rewarding and educational but also important and possibly life-changing. Still, we don’t have any international excursions in our short-term plans. I want to find a way to encourage this curiosity and nurture the thirst for knowledge beyond the everyday. But if I think about what I’d like my children to get out of travel, of course I want them to have fun, but I also want them to return with a deeper understanding of themselves and to appreciate how different people are in different places.

School is an obvious place for some of this learning, and there are also fun books and movies that take us to far-off places. But I think it’s equally important to teach about diversity by serving others here at home. The girls have volunteered at an organization that distributes outdoor gear to the homeless, and there they learned that many people close to home live very differently than they do. Their school sponsors a family at Christmas, which helps them think about families that are different than ours. Through my job here at No Barriers, they’ve spent some time with veterans and people with disabilities, and the inspiration they have found in them is inspiring to me.

Of course it would be more exciting to get on a plane and fly off to an exotic locale. Or maybe we’ll just have to get in the car and drive 14 hours north so that Caroline can dip her toe into Canada. But somehow I don’t think that’s really what she’s getting at.