>> A lot of people online say that travel makes you a better person.

Probably every experience you have can make you a better person, it doesn't need to be travel.

I used to travel a ton for work and fun (there was a year where I hit 6 continents in a 10-month window) but spending the last 9 months in a one-bedroom apartment with my wife and our newborn is no less mind opening.

In fact, like everything, travel gets old. At some point you know that you "got it" - you can be dropped in a random point on the earth and make something out of it - and yet you may not know how to be at one place for a long time (I am learning that now.)

Also, it makes things less special. In a way I am jealous of people who are dreaming of going to Paris and then experience it for the first time.

You do you - save your money, invest in relationships around you, learn things on line, be a good child and parent. If that's "all" you have to show against someone who has been everywhere but doesn't have what you have, you're ahead.

I'd say its not the travel itself, because travel by itself is pretty shallow. I'd say the experience of living with other people who are especially socio-economically or racially different than you, that changes things.