Last week, Cassie De Pecol, an American from Connecticut, became the fastest person in the world to visit all 196 sovereign countries in the world. She completed the task solo and in a little under 19 months, more than halving the previous record of three years and three months. Reading her account of her travels and watching videos of her journey have been fascinating and I recommend that everyone do it. The number one recommendation I make to business school students and entrepreneurs to be in general, is travel.

I first read "Investment Biker," about the round-the-world journey of famed investor Jim Rogers, nearly 20 years go. Not only did Rogers bike around the world, but he did so while commenting on the political and economic developments he saw on the way. Many of the prognostications he made have come true today. I specifically remember him writing about investing in land in eastern Turkey and how he thought it would be a good bet. I emailed him after reading this line, noting my family was from eastern Turkey and if he had specific recommendations for me as a Turkish-American with ties to the region. He was very cordial in replying to my email and although I was just a college student at the time and had no money to invest in eastern Turkey, his words were always in my mind. For the curious, a modest investment in land in eastern Turkey in the mid-1990s would yield at least a 20-fold return in dollar terms, under the most conservative of estimates.

Since reading "Biker," I have traveled to about one-quarter of the 196 sovereign countries in the world and never tire of exploring new countries and learning about new cultures. Nearly all of my entrepreneurial ventures, both successes and failures, have come about by accident. I have never sat at a table and brainstormed a new idea from scratch. Travel not only allows entrepreneurs the ability to see how other cultures solve problems but also opens up potential problems for entrepreneurs to solve. In other words, crossing a border is like crossing into a parallel dimension. As borders often prevent companies from freely operating globally, local entrepreneurs generally offer differing solutions to differing problems. What's left for a smart entrepreneur is to adapt said solutions to local environments, local laws and local regulations.

Not only does travel offer a practical and immediate benefit for an entrepreneur, giving them a new business idea, but it also hones skills necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. Among these skills, patience ranks near the top. Traveling generally requires accommodating the needs of others and adhering to "artificial" timelines. You cannot travel wherever and whenever you want, you need to be flexible in working around flight times, train schedules, border crossing traffic et cetera. This often leaves you with "unproductive" time in which you are left "waiting." The lesson learned from such waits is not only great time management skills but also scheduling skills. Supply chain management is essentially the study of the travel of goods and services and practical lessons from travel experiences may make understanding these challenges that much easier.

Last November I was on a flight from Frankfurt to Orlando, Florida. After boarding there were apparently technical difficulties and the captain said we would be waiting for a repair crew to board and do the necessary repairs. Two hours later and the repair crew had given up and we were told to prepare to deplane. The passenger in front of me calmly picked up his cellphone, called Lufthansa central booking and had his ticket changed to a connecting flight via Washington, D.C. while nearly all other passengers were left oblivious. Those that had not noticed were forced to stay the night in a hotel in Frankfurt (if they had visas allowing them to leave the airport) or worse yet were forced to stay the night wandering the abandoned halls of the airport for tomorrow's flight. Emulating my fellow passenger, I made a similar call and was only one of a handful of passengers put on the new flight, full, before we had even deplaned. Problem solving in the face of adversity 101.

I cannot overstate the benefits of travel for entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike. While you may not learn an easily monetizable skill through travel, you will have at least broadened your horizons and that itself, is priceless.