How Travel Changes You
I love to travel. Since I was in high school, I would dream of travelling to far off places. Egypt was the number one place I wanted to see…can you believe I have yet to go there! I think imagining the places to travel to is half the fun.
What most people don’t realize is how travelling changes you. I doubt there are a whole lot of people that plan a trip to change themselves. Most people plan a trip with excitement to see another culture, a place they have been wanting to see, to experience the food and the sights. People also plan trips to escape from their everyday. Sometimes it is just needing a break from the norm, sometimes it is doing something that scares them a bit and sometimes it is to get away after a life changing event like a breakup a death, or a job loss.
There is this amazing by-product that happens when you travel. This impact happens on a larger scale the more independent you travel. When you are travelling for pleasure it is a great bonus, but when you are travelling after a life changing event then this could be life altering in the best possible way.
Fear Smashing
We all have fears and as we get older the more are there or the more they become ingrained in us. Travelling helps you shatter a lot of fears…even just getting on the plane and then taking the steps in a new country where you don’t know anything is huge. If you are travelling solo, even eating meals in a restaurant on your own is another hurdle and when you see for yourself that foreign places are not as scary as the media makes it out, this will smash that fear and allows you to open up to travelling to places you didn’t think you could go.
Confidence
This is my favourite one. With the fears, they bring your confidence down on a number of different things. When you start smashing through your fears the confidence level continues to climb. When you see how amazingly capable you are to navigate the airports, to find your accommodation, to find your way back when you get lost, and to talk to strangers for help or for conversation they all contribute to shooting your confidence through the roof.
Happiness
When you start conquering your fears and your confidence expands. I find happiness takes a front seat in your life when you travel. You may have been happy to begin with, but the level of happiness just exudes out of you. You begin to attract wonderful things just by pure osmosis. The little things don’t get you down, you tend to go with the flow more, and good things just happen. It feels so good having this energy that it infects others in the best possible way.
When you get home, I find the most challenging is to keep these amazing things you got from your trip from dwindling. It seems to ebb and flow as you are now back to your routine and your everyday. I have found that there are two things that keep them strong.
- Keep yourself surrounded by people who are radiating this same energy. Stay away from those energy vampires (you know the ones…after spending time with them you feel exhausted or moody).
- Continue to take more trips. Now this doesn’t mean they have to be long expensive trips, but I found that even taking weekend trips away locally will give you a smaller similar effect.
So do yourself a favour and take those trips and little getaways to give your mental health a big boost.