Top 9 Benefits of Traveling to India

About the benefits of traveling to India

A trip to India is an amazing experience that will stay with you for a long time. India is different from anywhere else. Traveling to India has many material and spiritual benefits over a trip to many other countries. Some people are deterred by a trip to India for a variety of reasons, some justified and some not. This post lists the top 9 benefits of traveling to India.

1. Costs

If you compare travel costs in India to trips elsewhere, such as Europe, US, Australia, or South America, there is no doubt that a trip to India is significantly cheaper. India is relatively close to European countries and it’s not complicated to get there from the US, so flight costs are not a barrier. The food is usually cheap and lodging is cheap. Internal transportation within India is cheap unless you choose to take a number of internal flights. In such a case, it is clear that the cost of transportation within India will increase, but even then it is not overpriced. An internal flight can add another $150-200, depending on your destination and departure point.

The more you are willing to adapt to the way the locals live, the lower your travel costs will be. The amount of money that will be enough for a few weeks to travel in the US will suffice for a half year trip to India. Also, whether you are a soldier who has completed regular service or a family with two or three children is a significant consideration.

2. Beautiful India

India is an amazing and beautiful country. It has geographic, human, and cultural wealth. You can travel to India and enjoy Yoga in India. Everything is in India, including tropical regions, desert areas, mountains, and flatlands. Cultural wealth reaches its peak in Hindu holy sites (Varanasi), in the far north of Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh), the center of Buddhist Tibetans, and in Amritsar (the center of the Sikhs). For travelers, the experiences in these places are very powerful. It’s not just another monument or museum.

3. Yoga & Meditation

One might say that the West was introduced to yoga and meditation in the middle of the twentieth century. It is true that Yoga teachers came to the West before the twentieth century and there are earlier references to meditation and its benefits. The massive presence of yoga and meditation in Western countries was especially present in the mid-1960s with the hippie movement in the United States and later John Lennon’s trip to India and his acquaintance with Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh. Those who instilled the culture of yoga and meditation deep within the West and India were the spiritual mother who gave meaning to the baby boomers who sought meaning for their lives.

Today there is an endless number of yoga and meditation workshops all over the world and in every self-respecting gym. The health and mental benefits of yoga and meditation have become commonplace. But yoga and meditation are not only practices that help physical and mental health but as a holistic concept of life that helps to give meaning and purpose to life. Since India is the source country of this spiritual wealth, it is a natural attraction for many people who want to understand more deeply the concepts of yoga and meditation that shape their lives.

4. Land of Hinduism and Buddhism

India is the homeland of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Buddhism in India exists almost exclusively in northern India, in Himachal Pradesh (Dharamsala, Mcleodganj), the seat of the Tibetan Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers. Buddhism was born in India and its concepts were included (at least partially) in Hinduism. Buddha is conceived as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, one of the three major Hindu gods.

People in the West who are interested in Buddhism and in the Dalai Lama and his teachings, come to India to learn directly. I happened to be present at MacLeod Gang when the Dalai Lama came to give a lecture. It’s hard to describe the excitement towards his visit and his speech. Dozens of delegations from all over the world and many thousands of people arrived just to hear the Dalai Lama speak.

5. Space

India is a vast subcontinent. The size of India is about 3.3 million square kilometers. It’s the seventh largest country in the world, meaning most countries in the world are significantly smaller from India.

For those who come from small to medium countries, it is a wonderful feeling of freedom to travel in such a large geographical area. You can travel to India for months and months and still cover only a small part of it.

6. India is suitable for families

India is also suitable for families. Economically, a trip for a family of four or five people would be much cheaper than a trip to Europe or the US. In addition, families who are less interested in classic tourist attractions such as Disneyland or large parks, and prefer cultural, geographic, and spiritual aspects, will definitely prefer India.

This is why many foreign families prefer to travel in India rather than in a Western country.

7. Food, Vegetarianism, and veganism

Indian food is very spicy food, very tasty, very nutritious, and usually very cheap. It’s enough to eat a small amount of Indian food to feel full. I personally like Indian food and as an amateur chef, I cook Indian food very frequently in my home.

Foods like Dal Baht, Chana Masala, Rajma, are part of my regular diet so for me and for family, Indian food is one of the main highlights of visiting India. This is one of our greatest pleasures in India. But there is more than just the food itself. As someone who has been married to a vegan woman for many years, vegan food is not easy to get. In the last year or two there has been a change but still, in a large majority of restaurants outside of India, vegan dishes are improvised dishes or appear to be a compromise made by the restaurant. In India, however, vegan food is built into Hindu culture. Vegan food is an ideology and therefore cooking, groceries, and dishes are adapted to vegan food. The result is very tasty food and most importantly, available everywhere. India is actually a paradise for vegans. Since Israel has been gaining momentum in recent years, India has become a natural destination for vegans.

8. Lack of judgment

Most foreign tourists are part of the Judeo-Christian culture of the Western world. One of the outstanding characteristics of this culture is the constant judgment from the surrounding environment. Whether it is from parents, friends, workplace, everyone judges you all the time. You are judged for your appearance, the way you speak, your actions, and everything that is related to you. In some East Asian countries (India and the Buddhist countries) this is completely not the case. They accept you as you are in the most natural way. You can live in any way you like, you can wear whatever you like, talk about whatever you want and you will be treated all with patience and naturalness. The lack of judgment creates an incredible feeling of freedom and is one of the great attractions of these places.

9. Without a strict set of rules

It’s related to the previous paragraph but different. The western culture is a culture of many rules and most of them are not even written rules. In some extreme cases, which became quite common in the Politically Correct culture, a set of permissible thoughts and a set of prohibited thoughts and opinions are set which makes Western freedom of thinking even more restricted with clear boundaries of thought, language, and conversation. Beyond that, there are many unwritten laws on clothing, food, education, study, work, leisure, and actually anything is possible. In East Asia, especially in countries like India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, the atmosphere is much looser. Everything is much slower and less pressing. There is a lesser sense of limits and limitations. When you come to visit a country like India, the experience of freedom is very strong, not only because of freedom from work but because of the freedom from countless restrictive laws that your culture dictates to you. India is perceived by foreigners as a place of more real and profound freedom. Follow us on Instagram @eastasiancultures