Even in challenging economic times, making sure that study abroad is part of our college students' education is a vital investment. If we want a new generation of leaders and innovators who can be effective in an ever more globalized world, sending our students overseas is not a luxury. It's a necessity.

I have a New Year's tradition. I lay all my travel dreams on the table, sort them out, prioritize, and begin the process of turning those dreams into reality.

It seems that the most fearful people in our country are those who don't travel and are metaphorically barricaded in America. If we all stayed home and built more walls and fewer bridges between us and the rest of the world, eventually we would have something to actually be fearful of.

Travel is intensified living … and one of the last great sources of legal adventure.

A society has to make a choice: tolerate alternative lifestyles or build more prisons.

Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colors.

It's just in Washington we're talking about equal rights for gay people, civil liberty to smoke marijuana, taking care of the environment, and it's all just decency and common sense and patriotism. And in other parts of the country that would be, like, inconceivable.