I am right there with you in that club! I have always been one to spend a bunch of time outdoors but iNat has been a tremendous resource for figuring out what is around me at any given time. As someone that spends lots of time outdoors alone and has eclectic interests spanning pretty much everything natural, even something as simple as affirmation that what I ‘think’ is that species is indeed that species helps immensely with confidence and every step of the way is a building block to increasing identification skills as a naturalist.
To segue that into travel, it turns any given plant or animal that you might on observe on a trip from “Wow, that plant/fish/lizard is cool!” to that along with “that’s Mount Diablo fairy-lantern, a species of Mariposa lily endemic to that mountain alone.” Not all examples are as extreme, but I find that each little bit of information learned about an organism makes it more interesting, even if it’s just what it is and maybe not even specific to species. To me, building skills as a naturalist serves to open your eyes even more; on any given walk there are endless things to incite wonder and curiosity, and the more you open your eyes the more you will see, appreciate, and enjoy.
And finally, I would be remiss to mention a trip I took last year that I will remember for the rest of my life as one of my fondest adventures. I was planning a ~20 day spring trip to California as my friends were getting married in Mariposa and with the rest of the free time I was going to explore the state solo with the primary focus being wildflowers. As someone living near the coast in the northeast where there is literally nothing to be concerned about I started a thread on the forum asking about things I should consider from a safety perspective which quickly shifted into advice from many people on incredible places to explore and what cool organisms could be found there. It transformed the trajectory of my trip in the best way, and the thread along with summary post of the trip can be found here.