Being one person in a sea of over 7 billion, it’s very easy to feel as important as a single plankton in the vast ocean. This can be somewhat true, as the population continues to grow. The amazing thing is that you are much more connected than you may think. Travel is one of the best ways to grow your connections, and show how small the world really is.

I cannot count how many times that I have been somewhere and seen someone I know while traveling. Sometimes this is not that shocking because I have been within a few hours of where I live. Keep traveling though, and you will meet people in stranger and stranger coincidences.

When I was younger, I lived in Iowa. We would occasionally travel to the Mall of America – about a four hour car drive. We saw someone that we knew more than once while visiting. Also, while visiting Silver Dollar City in Missouri, we saw some friends from Iowa. This holds for most amusement parks, water parks – essentially anyplace that is a “destination” for a trip. It also held in college when I saw people that I had not seen since elementary school.

The best testament that travel shrinks the world is from when I was in elementary school. Over one of our breaks, we went on a vacation to the East Coast. This trip included visiting many lighthouses – something I always love to do. At a random lighthouse in Maine (keep in mind, this was about a 27 hour drive from home), we saw my third-grade teacher.

Travel is a powerful tool to grow your connections. So go out and explore, and you will see that it is really a small world after all.