I love to travel. I don't know if that is just how some of us are wired, or if it is because I grew up in different countries, or if it is just the pure magic of travel. In a few hours Dave and I are boarding a plane, headed to Mexico, and I've been thinking about why we love to travel so much.

I feel like we gain so much from traveling - new friends, new experiences, new stories. I find that I am absolutely inspired by new sights, new sounds, new tastes, and new understandings. And there is now emerging scientific proof that suggests that international experiences make us more creative!

Evidence is emerging that foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility (the mind’s ability to jump between different ideas, a key component of creativity) and the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms. It turns out that these deep changes are not just about being in new surroundings, but about really engaging in them. And that's the other thing I love about travel: it allows me to sketch new things: people, architecture, landscapes. And sketching is a meditation of sorts. A deep engagement with my surroundings.

Foreign experiences and sketching both strengthen my sense of self and that too, leaves me giddy and heady. Travel increases my sense of connection with different people and that magically increases my faith in humanity.

Obviously we don't need plane tickets to explore new experiences. A trip to a different neighborhood could ignite newness too. But I'm happy to look across the room at my suitcase and know that in a few hours, I'll be in the sky.

Travel opens my mind, my heart and my sketchbook. That's it. And that's magical.