Andy is currently doing a three year Leadership Development Rotation at Principal Financial, a Fortune 250 company. He writes about Marketing, Millennials, and Technology on his blog at www.andydrish.com.

—– 9:00 p.m. at the Berlin train station —–

Me: I’d like a train ticket to Krakow, Poland please.
Ticket person: Actually… that train is already booked. I can get you on another one tomorrow night.
Me: Crap. Um… What other overnight trains do you have departing tonight that are headed East?
Ticket person: Well, you could go to Budapest. The night train has a transfer tomorrow morning in Vienna, Switzerland.
Me: Perfect.

—– 10 Hours later at the Vienna train station —-

Me: Excuse me… where is the 8:00 a.m. train to Budapest?
Ticket person: Sir, the Hungarian train conductors are on strike. There are no trains going to Budapest.
Me: Crap. Um… Where else East would you recommend going?
Ticket person: There is a train departing for Bratislava in 30 minutes.
Me: Sounds good to me. Thanks!

That’s just one of the many scenarios I ran into while backpacking in Europe. Traveling has given me a ton of great stories… like being accosted by Gypsies, sleeping in the homes of completely random strangers, and making money teaching card tricks to cocktail waitresses in Amsterdam.

But stories are only a byproduct of what traveling is truly about. The stories are the “head fake,” if you will.

Traveling is actually about learning. Learning about cultures. Learning about yourself. And, most importantly, learning how to problem solve.

Everyone knows that you’ll learn about different cultures when you’re in a different country. (Duh.) And when you step outside your comfort zone, obviously you’ll learn more about yourself.

But problem solving skills are a hidden benefit of traveling. Our education system doesn’t teach students to problem solve. It teaches students to do the least amount of work possible to get what grade they want.

That doesn’t work with traveling. It’s not about a grade. There’s no text book. There’s no right answer. There’s simply a scenario and a decision to make.

Above everything else, traveling teaches you how to make things happen. And no matter what you do or where you go, that’s a skill that will stick with you for the rest of your life.