Jimenez: Travels makes one an educated person

Friday, July 8, 2011

WHAT happens to a student after graduation? Most common, we hear graduates say they will rest first after that tiresome schooling years.

But graduation ceremonies are tagged as Commencement Exercise. The word means beginning or the start. Grads commence a new life and commence to find a job.

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One of the best jobs is a career that allows you to travel. Allow me to share my own experience. During my school days, I always grab opportunities of travel whether they are school’s extra-curricular activities or invitations from friends and relatives. I never say I am tired of travelling because that travel, when over, is travel opportunity lost.

That is why maybe everyone tags me as “lagawan” in Ilonggo orbyahero in Tagalog. Until my age now, I love travelling. As a travel and business writer and photojournalist, travelling becomes part of my life. I get tired if I don’t travel. I get weak if I sit down and do nothing. And I found it fruitful to be travelling. You tend to meet new acquaintances and reap fruits of your travel.

Ever since, when I ride the jeepney, bus or car, I always have my eyes and senses on the road, grabbing sights and scenes to enhance my knowledge. Don’t sleep while travelling. Watch where you are passing and you become a more educated person. I have never finished reading a pocketbook or a book in my whole life. But on record I have stayed in 82 hotels, pensions, inns, resorts around the Philippines and Asia. It’s not bragging but it’s a big factor of my life.

One does not need to have wealth to travel. All you need to know is know the right people and do the right thing that could give you travel opportunities. With the cheap airfares that Cebu Pacific has initiated during its birth in the country and until today, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos got the chance to travel to more places because of the cheap fares. It’s a wonder that Cebu Pacific, after more than a decade flying in the skies, it is still a profitable airline.

There are also the cheaper boat fares and cheaper ferry fares between Bacolod and Iloilo where I travel every week between the two islands. And that makes travel convenient and affordable. That is why travel education is still the best.

I could still recall decades back. Whenever I have the chance to fly to Metro Manila, I never gulp a bottle of beer in a restaurant. I rather drink a bottle in the hotel lobbies like that of Hotel Intercon, Dusit Thani Hotel Makati (then Manila Garden Hotel), Manila Pavilion or Hyatt. For a few pesos more to pay the beer, I get educated watching people work and move about.

My advice – if you eat batchoy, try to spend a little more to experience places like having one at 21 Restaurant or a beer at L’Fisher Chalet at the top garden floor or Bacolod Pavillion Hotel. That is what you call experience and education.”