This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Ben talks about how travel has informed and enriched his life.
Ben Long grew up on his family’s Greenbrier County cattle farm. A graduate of Washington & Lee University and West Virginia University’s School of Law, Ben was offered a unique, all-expense paid, year-long travel opportunity when he was 23, and he has continued to travel internationally ever since. He has immersed himself in cultures in Africa, India, China, South America and Central America, and along the way he has discovered a different kind of education. His writing and photography have appeared regularly on National Geographic’s website.
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so let’s go back years I’m just your
average college sophomore more concerned
about the social scene than the world at
large
it was a Friday morning and I’m running
about minutes late the class was I
was just enjoying that social scene the
night before and all I was thinking
about is what the world’s gonna get in
or what excuse I was gonna make up to
get out of trouble when I opened the
door to the Science Building I saw this
poster and it was of a guy sitting in
what looked to be Everest base camp with
a saying and it said imagine where the
journey will take you and for some
reason that poster really spoke to me
that day and it seemed a lot more
interesting than trying to sneak into
class so I skipped class that day and
hopped on a computer to see what that
poster was offering so let’s fast
forward two years so we’re still back
seven I begin to panic as I watch the in
flight tracker in front of me tell me
I’m somewhere over northern Africa but I
was I was getting very nervous you see
that poster was offering a one year all
expenses paid trip around the world of a
topic of my choosing now translated my
upbringing on a cattle farm in West
Virginia into studying cattle cultures
around the world for a year I called it
my bovine bonanza you can see I began to
panic these during all that planning and
preparation of those two years I somehow
managed to miss that I didn’t really
know anybody in Tanzania where I was
hitting now didn’t really know how I was
gonna learn about the Masai who I was
gonna go learn about and they’re the
most famous cattle herders in all of
East Africa my nerdy kiss so let’s fast
forward hours now I’m now the honored
guest and a Maasai wedding after
donating two cases of Coca Cola to the
wedding party which is apparently a very
big deal I was being force-fed
homemade alcoholic brews that looked and
smelled like urine and soon being thrown
into the
and circle under the full moon it was
pitch black and one thing you know about
the Messiah is that their world renowned
for their leaping ability they can jump
through the through the roof and it may
have been the fact that I drank a little
too much was a other homemade brew or
the fact that it was pitch dark or the
fact that I was a kicker in American
football and not a basketball player
that my first leap I landed trailing my
face and that was my introduction to
traveling and I’ve never really never
looked back but before I go forward I
want to make an important distinction
there’s a difference between vacation
and traveling now we Americans we love
to vacation we vacation all the time
think of a cruise or a beach or maybe
even a somewhat more adventurous trip
but have everything planned in advance
you have a script that you follow it’s
the T I’m talking about traveling and
traveling is a little more unplanned
spontaneous and experiential where you
have a couple a couple things playing a
couple ideas of what you want to do but
you mean in our travel or you meet a
local and word-of-mouth traveler culture
takes its course and you drop everything
and go do what they tell you to do the
travel Authority Rick Steves likes to
say that traveling is in in your country
through the back door while vacation is
ringing through the front and I’d like
to talk about traveling here today since
that introduction
I’ve spent nearly three years on the
road in one form or another from
backpacking through Central and Southern
Africa to searching for Bushman Kate
paintings in the Midian desert to
visiting homeless cow shelters on a pink
motorcycle in the Indian Himalaya
to working at a beach hostel in her guai
to becoming a founding member of a
traveling startup in Buenos Aires
traveling is sort of become my life but
I started noticing a theme throughout my
travels that’s was that was that all my
friends were European or Canadian or
South African or Z’s or Kiwis or even
Israelis virtually every other western
country but the United States and I met
some Americans traveling but most of
most of the people most of the Americans
I met were
on vacation or some short stays and I
thought about it long and hard like why
why are there not many Americans
traveling like so many other Western
countries and I think I finally figured
it out
they said we Americans we don’t we don’t
value travel like other countries do
getting lost and in forgotten part of
the world that’s not that is there’s no
there’s no value to our culture we don’t
see the value in it but I disagree I
think there is a value and that’s the
educational value now I could honestly
say that the three years I’ve spent on
the road I’ve learned more about the
world in myself than my undergraduate
and law degrees combined I didn’t
receive a diploma or I didn’t receive a
piece of paper to justify that
experience but I know the education
exists and someone once told me that a
true measure of any education is whether
not that education provides you with
the tools necessary to go out into the
world with confidence and by that
standard traveling was without a doubt
the best education I’ve ever received I
began to discover interest I never knew
I had documenting the happenings of the
day on my travels in my travel journal
at night I began to find my voice as a
writer and I still write to this day
whenever I was having a bad day or
needing a pickup I would find solace
peering through my viewfinder in my
camera and I fell in love with
photography and I own my own photography
company today I was introduced to the
adventure world for the first time in my
life I never had time to go hiking or
biking or climbing as I was always
playing baseball or American football or
working on the farm when I returned to
the u.s. I’ve actively sought out that
adventure world wherever I go I like to
say that my formal education gave me all
the pieces to the puzzle but traveling
helped me start to put them together
like I’m not it’s not complete but it
helped me see the bigger picture now
I always tell my friends and whoever
asked from the laser I always recommend
they go traveling but there’s many
reasons and they bring up why that they
just can’t do it
and I agree there’s many reasons why not
to get traveling and there’s never
really a good time to go traveling I
think the best time to go is when you’re
young before life happens but there’s
there’s always an excuse there’s always
a reason why not to go a wedding or
whatever but I’d like to discuss the two
reasons that I hear most often here
today and that’s that the world is just
too dangerous today and they just can’t
afford it
well the first point you can’t judge the
world about what you see in the news the
world is a very big place and I would
not have been able to do a fraction of
the things that I’ve done on the road
without the generosity in numerous
random acts of kindness from complete
strangers
it’s overwhelming I came you came and
quantify that like you’re from
hitchhiking through Africa to somebody
picking you up and taking it to their
home for the night or feeding you or
simply having a conversation when you
see you’re struggling to buy a loaf of
bread in a different language you see I
found that people are just as curious
about my culture as I am theirs and
often willing to give a helping hand and
I referenced the fact that we Americans
tend to just to judge the world by what
you see on the news let’s take for
instance like country X you see on the
news country X over their biggest
holiday weekend had people that were
shot and of those people died as a
esult of their injuries now if we watch
that that headline will be like oh my
goodness that’s got to be it we can’t go
there that whole country that whole
region is off-limits
what if I were to tell you that that
ountry was the United States and those
were the actual statistics that happened
this past fourth of July weekend and
in the city of Chicago now most of
us that live in the US we understand
that the u.s. is a very big place and
that was an isolated incident and heck
we would probably even recommend people
to go visit Chicago
the fourth of July don’t judge
everything about what you see on the TV
and secondly yes traveling does take
money like everything in the world but
you have to remember you you’re not only
big vacation here you’re going traveling
you’re not you’re not staying at the
nicest hotels resorts or eating at the
nicest restaurants you’re staying in
hostels your own home stage you’re don’t
work stays there’s so many volunteer
organizations out there where you can
work and exchange for a place to stay
and something to eat you’re going to
places of the world where you take
advantage of your exchange rate our
dollar goes a lot farther than it does
here and if you believe my argument that
traveling is an education and has an
educational value just simply look at
what we Americans spend on education in
this country
there’s over . trillion dollars in
outstanding student loan debt in this
country that I think look when viewed in
that light traveling is a bargain
because as higher education becomes more
and more expensive we have to look at
alternatives or ways to complement our
education and I think traveling is very
viable alternative our way to complement
that now if you also if you believe that
traveling has an educational value then
with any education there’s usually a
test way to kind of put what you learn
to use and traveling is no different
just the test happens whenever you
return home his that is in my opinion by
far the most difficult part of the
entire traveling experience because you
see you returned home and your your
family and your friends and everybody
expects the same person to return but
you’re not you see the world a little
differently because you’ve had different
life experiences you’ve gone different
places of the world where things
shouldn’t work but they do and you’ve
had these life-changing experiences so
you come home and you’re seeing your
home culture your home country for the
first time maybe in your life because
you’re seeing it through a new lens and
you have to reconcile that old world in
this new world and when you’re seeing
this new world you’re seeing things that
you like but you also see things
that you don’t like things that your
home country your culture that don’t do
so well not to be very troubling I know
I had a hard time with it for a very
long time but I also know when my
perception of my home country changed
and that’s when I was still living in
Tanzania with uh with the Maasai and I
was living there for about a month and
I’d heard so much about this very sacred
meat-eating ceremony that they have in
Maasai culture it’s called an or pool
and basically it were pool when you boil
it down and he’s basically you take a
cow or a calf to a sacred place in the
bush or up on top of a mountain and you
don’t leave more pool until you eat that
entire animal and after a month of
living there I’d hurt so much about it
and one of my friends his name was
Daniel and he was a Maasai and he spoke
very good English I finally convinced
him to talk to his father new German and
a couple of his brothers to let me have
my Lenoir pool and I couldn’t afford a
cow or a calf so I bought a goat so one
afternoon we we started walking up the
mountain tied up to goat and have
machetes we start building ourselves a
little protective crowd where we would
sleep in that night and it didn’t take
very long was very rudimentary structure
and we slaughtered the animal made a
fire and we went to bed I was asleep for
about I don’t know half hour an hour
when I heard the most terrifying sound
of my life about foot for my head and I
woke up and I didn’t know what was going
on and I look over to seen in Juma
stoking the fire and he just looked at
me and he said PC PC which is why he Lee
means hyena see they they smelled the
blood from the gut carcass and they had
come to see what they can get in that
rudimentary structure that we had put up
in minutes was the only thing
protecting us from the hyenas at night
so needless to say I didn’t get much
sleep that night and in over days if
not sleeping and eating nothing but goat
meat goat stew whatever else came out of
a goat I was on top of my game
but on the third day in the gym and I
started having conversation through his
son Daniel who was translating for us I
was learning all about the importance of
Cado in their culture now that it’s
viewed as a bank account it’s a social
status now dowries to this day are still
paid with cattle to buy their bride and
then he started asking me questions and
his first question kind of took me
off-guard and he said who will win Obama
or Hillary and he had to understand this
is in the summer of just during the
Democratic run-up to a u.s. election the
US and but the thing that really
surprised me was is that new Juma didn’t
speak Swahili which is or English which
is the language of any international
publication he spoke ma which is only a
verbal language so he was hearing this
secondhand and I answered the best I
could I basically said that US too early
it’s hard to tell kind of brushed it off
but then he asked me the second question
he said how long will it take for me to
walk to America and I spent about –
minutes trying to explain to him the
concept of an ocean and he is didn’t
couldn’t fathom couldn’t grasp the
concept of an ocean so here’s a man that
virtually any standard was would be dirt
deemed uneducated but still yet he
taught me the importance of my own
country and the importance of a
presidential election in my home country
to his life as a semi-nomadic cattle
herder in the middle of nowhere in East
Africa he may technically be educated
but he taught me a lot that day did you
see conversations just like those with
people all over the world it could be in
a cafe in the Himalayas or in Hong Kong
those are the those are your lecture
halls those are your classrooms of your
textbooks that’s where you’re learning
about other cultures and you’re learning
about the world and with each
conversation in each country being its
own chapter
and you see I would like to leave you
with a quote today I came along those
same lines that came from st. Agustin of
hippo who was a philosopher around
AD he lived in the world was a very
different place but even then he
understood the importance of travel he
said the world is a book and those who
don’t travel read only a page I can
honestly say that I’ve just started to
read this book and it’s fascinating it’s
a real page-turner
I highly recommend you pick it up one