Damien Enright: Travel is a great education that teaches more than just geography

'My wife and I have been in India before and travelled its length and breadth: we are 'experienced' — we think'

A train making its way through the Indian countryside. Picture: iStock

When I meet kids, and ask them what they'd most like to do, the answer is almost always "travel..." Travel before college or after college and before starting "work". This is as true of my grandchildren as it is of the "kids next door". Where? I ask my granddaughter, Tilda. "Colombia and Bolivia, I've saving up by working nights..." Well done, girl, I say.

I've always travelled. My pre-teenage grandchildren, the bouncing half-Czechs, once asked me to list the countries I've visited and which one would I recommend to them. Well, some of them they could no longer go to, not now anyway. I'd like to tell them that a ride in a 30-year-old Russian Volga taxi from Peshawar in Pakistan through the Khyber Pass to Kabul is an iconic experience, or to cross the Pyrenees at night with no walk map, just a pocket compass and a small torch, is fun, but I wouldn't want to be getting them into trouble.