The desert heat was scorching. My friend from Austria and I decided to head into the comfort of our mud house. He grabbed the chilled Harak, the liquor of the Mediterranean, out of the fridge. He poured me a cup and the cool liquid slowly slid down my throat, bringing a rush of chill through my body.

We talked about why we had come here and what made us travel. I told him that to travel is to open up the mind, to truly enter the real classroom. He agreed and then said he had something for me to read. He brought over an issue of “The Economist” and opened to an article about the percentage of people in the United States who own a passport. According to this issue, only 34 percent of Americans over the age of 18 own passports.

I was in utter disbelief. My stay was coming toward an end on the kibbutz and this made me think about all the wonderful people I met and all the growing I had gone through. I met people from Denmark, Austria, South Korea, Australia, Colombia, England, Russia, Ireland and Israel. For the first time in my life, I was truly understanding different viewpoints and different cultures. In school, we learn, but when you travel, you understand.

When my trip finally ended and my plane gracefully landed back in Cleveland, I felt as if I was illuminated when I meandered through Cleveland Hopkins Airport. I viewed everything differently.

As I am now back in school, I think back to the article my friend showed me. Why is this percentage so low? I think sometimes, as Americans, we need an incentive to go after something. This is what I learned; let this be an incentive.

I was raised Christian, so traveling in the Middle East was the first time I was truly immersed in other religions: the power of Jerusalem with the Jewish Shabbat and the Muslim call for prayer; the socialist kibbutz I lived in and the cares that are not about the gain of money and big houses, but the gain of family values and love; the small joys of community parties where everyone knows your first name; the Egyptian Nile and the care for the land. It showed me how people still live so simply and still find immense happiness in this life. They don’t need cell phones, laptops or HDTVs for happiness. They have the sun on their backs and the love for their land.

This is the real classroom. There are no grades, just understanding that touches your mind and spirit.

I believe America is truly one of the greatest countries in the world, even though I have my soap boxes with our current administration. We can travel this country and go from the desert to oceanside beaches to snow-capped mountains. We can meet people from all cultures of the world. In New York City, you can walk down the street and hear six or seven different languages.

One of the beautiful aspects of this country is that it is a melting pot of all the cultures of the world, but you really can’t understand these cultures here because they’ve become Americanized. You can’t see the culture for what it is, and judgments and stereotypes are created. Therefore, I knew it was necessary to travel outside of this country to understand these different cultures better and America as a whole. When you travel and return, you look past these judgments and stereotypes for what the person or culture really is.

I encourage all of you to travel. Samuel Johnson, one of England’s best-known literary figures, said, “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”

I have always taken an empirical philosophy toward life, meaning real learning and experience is through the senses. You can read all you want about the cultures of this world, the different religions of this world or even the different political systems of this world, but you can’t truly understand them until you experience them.

To put yourself in uncomfortable situations is to learn about yourself and the influences around you. My fellow students, there is a wonderfully beautiful and tragic world full of happiness and sadness for us to go out and see. I ask of you to step out of your comfort zone and change the way you view and think about this world.

I patiently wait for that next stamp on my passport. It says, “I’ve been there, I experienced this culture and people, and I now understand this world a little bit better.”