Many people don't know, but American Girl Scouts get to travel

Hear the words of Anna Maria Chavez, who proclaimed: “Many people don't know, but American Girl Scouts get to travel the world, and that's a very good thing, as the more we can expose our young people to other cultures, the better off we'll be in this increasingly globalized environment.” At first, these words may sound like encouragement for a simple program of youth. Yet hidden within them is a truth of eternal wisdom: that the shaping of the future rests upon the journeys of the young, and that to open their eyes to the wider world is to prepare them to walk as leaders of tomorrow.

The Girl Scouts, in their tradition of service, learning, and adventure, embody more than badges and uniforms. They are an ancient pattern renewed: the training of the young in discipline, courage, and community. In ages past, the youth were guided through rites of passage, sent into the forests, the seas, or the mountains to learn not only of survival but of the world beyond their homes. So too do these young travelers, by walking foreign lands, learn lessons not written in books, but inscribed in the hearts of other peoples.

To travel the world in youth is to plant seeds of wisdom that blossom for a lifetime. A child who has seen another culture, spoken another tongue, or shared bread with strangers across the sea, becomes an adult who cannot be confined by prejudice. Such a person carries within them the vision that humanity is larger than borders, and that compassion must not stop at the edge of one’s own land. This is the teaching Chavez unveils: that in the mingling of cultures, the young discover their place in a greater human family.

History proves this truth. Consider Alexander the Great, tutored by Aristotle, who as a youth was taught to look beyond Macedonia. His conquests carried him across continents, but it was his vision of blending cultures—marrying Persian customs with Greek, building cities that were crossroads of East and West—that left the deepest mark. Though born of war, his legacy of cultural fusion shaped civilizations for centuries. Likewise, when young hearts travel, they carry back not conquest, but understanding, weaving the threads of unity in a divided world.

Chavez speaks, too, of the globalized environment—a world where distance is shrinking, where the actions of one nation ripple instantly across oceans, where ideas cross borders faster than ships or trains. In such a world, ignorance is perilous, and understanding is survival. If the next generation is not prepared to live as citizens of a world rather than of a single village, then they will be ill-equipped for the trials to come. Travel, then, is no luxury, but an education demanded by the age.

The meaning of her words is both practical and prophetic. Practical, because travel directly teaches adaptability, resilience, and empathy. Prophetic, because she sees that in an interconnected age, peace and prosperity will depend not on walls but on bridges. The young people who see other lands now will be the leaders who guide with vision tomorrow. And if they are trained to see all peoples as kin, they will build a future that heals rather than divides.

The lesson for us is clear: if you have the chance, give the young not only books, but journeys. Encourage them to travel, whether far across oceans or into the neighborhoods unlike their own. Teach them to listen, to observe, to respect. In daily practice, this means supporting programs that expose children to diversity, nurturing curiosity rather than fear, and remembering that the heart of education is not memorization, but transformation.

Therefore, children of tomorrow, remember the wisdom of Anna Maria Chavez: the more we open the eyes of our youth to the world, the more open the world will be to peace. Travel, learn, embrace cultures beyond your own, and you will be richer than any king. For the true wealth of life is not in gold or empire, but in the understanding that all humanity is one family, and every land is a chapter in our shared story.