Writing From Experience Or Not?

It seems I haven't written in a long, long time and that is true. The last entry was in November last year. Since writing about the cycling tripI went on, I haven't had any travel adventures besides a trip home for the Christmas period. The lack of travel has brought a question to mind - is it necessary to experience in order to write and in my case, does traveling aid creativity?

A few years ago I took part in a Literature course in Dublin. There was a fantastic professor who had a wonderful knowledge of the subject and the ability to portray this in a very interesting manner. One of the books we looked at was Black List Section H by Francis Stuart, an Irish writer who went to Germany during World War II. He went there to experience the horrific events that were taking place at that time and to write about this. He even took up a post working for the Nazi regime. The professor proceeded to talk about the influence the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had on Francis Stuart. He explained that the philosopher used the Greek characters, Apollo and Dionysius to show the different ways of gaining inspiration. Apollo is the restrained one and represents creativity emanating from imagination alone whereas, Dionysius is excessive and reckless representing creativity from experience. 

The reaction from my classmates was very crtitical and they the majority stated that this was completely immoral. While I totally agree, I still find it interesting to read about what this Irish writer did in order to gain the experience to then write about it. There are some people with very imaginative minds who can conjure up stories and songs effortlessly but others need something to happen in order to write about it. 

I don't plan to go on any trips to dangerous war-torn countries but perhaps a trip of some sort would give me something to write about.