As with any writer, traveling opened up new vistas of awareness for Twain. He designated himself "A citizen of the world". His journeys served as the inspiration for many a novel such as Life On The Misissippi, Roughing It, The Innocents Abroad, and Following The Equator.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." *