There are so many metaphors to describe travel that one could get lost just trying to choose. You could think of it as a long dusty highway; a faint, fuzzy distant and uncertain yet inviting horizon; a magical mystery forest; a rainbow begging for you to find its pot of gold; the roar of an unseen lion in the bush, which has your blood pounding. All of which may have you scared yet strangely excited.
Whatever word picture best describes your own personal experience there is one sure thing that travel does. It changes you – for better or worse; whether you like it or not; whether you are conscious of it or not. You change!! As was once said, ‘change is the only constant.’ You cannot avoid it.
1) Getting out of your PJs and your comfort zone
Your comfort zone is probably the first barrier you have to climb over when you set out to travel. There are literally thousands of little things you do or wouldn’t do, which you will be pushed to do when you are far away out there. You will have to shed those warm, comfy PJs of home and its security. Everything is new; everything is different. Everyday things suddenly seem scary and strange. There is no escape so you will have to force yourself out of those secure places in your mind. In a short while you will be doing ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ things in far-off places and treat them as routine. It is amazing how quickly we shed our old skins.
2) Decision-making comes easier
There is no one to turn to – no good friend or mom or dad to help when you have to make an unplanned change of course or when an unexpected glitch pops up in your schedule. You start to figure out alternatives based on scant information. You learn to process the options based on your own experiences and needs without the pressure of another person’s biases. You will discover, you have a mind of your own and it is a pretty good and clear one too!
3) You stretch, become flexible
You learn to bend with the wind and sway with it like a palm tree. The rigidity of earlier life-long routines suddenly seems unnecessary. You will quickly throw off the shackles of ‘this is how I do things.’ Sometimes the new routines may last only a couple of days and you have to change them again. But that’s all right ‘cause you are now on your toes and the daily drudgery of routines are why left home to travel, didn’t you? You find that locals do things differently and you learn to appreciate the merit in that. You will appreciate and understand the basis for their customs and enjoy it. You may find yourself adopting their cultural practices and making them your own. Like a good yoga work out, the changes will do you good.
4) You adapt; ride the tide
Your precious lifestyle abruptly goes out the window. The facilities and comforts you grew up with and took for granted are not available anymore. You are out there free-falling and unsure of anything. No matter how much you read up and googled you will still be unprepared for the experiences that await you. The colours, smells, sights and sounds will overwhelm you. Right will be left and vice versa. Your fears will rise right up and you will want to get back on the flight you just got off.
Stick it out and you will find that different is terrific. Embrace it and enjoy it. You learn to ride the tide and cope with slow, uncomfortable buses. Hotel rooms will often not be not quite as advertised and situations seem to change every time you look. Delays can lead to missed connections and leave you seemingly stranded in the midst of nowhere or late at night in a town that has gone to sleep. No worries you will find a way to move on and find a place to lay your head and sort out the situation.
5) You become stronger
Whoever said, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ must have been talking about travel. Things happen when you are on a trip that just doesn’t happen when you are at home. That warm, sheltered cocoon called home is out of reach. You find yourself on the wrong bus or train; you get sick and no doctor around; you get robbed and left with no money and no friendly soul to help; you lose your passport and have to travel a huge distance to get to the embassy to replace it thus throwing your whole schedule and bookings out of gear. The list can be endless and most incidents minor and bad luck seems to dog your every step. Bad enough for you to want to just pack it all in and head back home.
However, you stick it out and find you have survived the hassles and horrid things that happened to you. You discover a well of resilience you never knew you had. You start to chalk it down to lessons learned, experiences to be treasured and even laughed at in retrospect. Minor things stop bothering you; problems are there to be solved, not bury you. You very quickly lose your fear of the unexpected and frustration is no longer a part of your make up while calmness and composure does. You exert more control over your life and if you don’t have control you don’t panic or even worry. Anxiety attacks become a thing of the past. You develop the strength to do your own thing and the courage to avoid being pressured into following the ‘group.’ You grow steel in your spine making you strong in a quiet, non-aggressive way.
6) You get comfortable with yourself
Loneliness is one of the biggest concerns when leaving home to travel the world. Believe me, it is not a problem at all – you will love the time alone. You have no encumbrances; not have to answer to anyone; do what you want when you want. You are truly liberated because it is just you and the experiences you set out to find or unexpected joys that pop up. Being alone is a marvellous tool. Your mind and your soul expand because there is much in the world that will open your eyes. Read books (or invest in a kindle) take long walks, day dream, listen to music. You will discover independence and the strength it brings; you will function well on your own. You will define yourself without the crutch of relationships. You are living your dream. You will get comfortable in your skin. It’s a good kind of lonely.
7) Confidence, assurance or self-belief
Call it what you will but you acquire poise and coolness under pressure. Trying to get directions in a language you don’t know; talking to a stranger; taking risks (not stupid ones though) and managing them; learning to trust your instinct and intuition; honing your perception to the point where you confidently make a call on whom to trust and not to. Hey! You have navigated strange cities and the Australian Great Barrier Reef with the same aplomb. You can do anything, even climb Mt Everest. It’s all cool.
8) You lose your ego-centrism while perceptions change
When you pack your bag for a journey you better leave behind your old mindset. You are going to find, for a start, that people think and see things differently in the rest of the world. They do things a whole lot differently too that are not necessarily bad or inferior. It works for them and who are you to criticise. You could say there are other worlds outside your own. You make friends on the road with people whose opinions may clash with yours but that’s OK. You become more understanding and tolerant of people, places and things. You will also acquire one major virtue – patience. Buses are either late or simply do not show up; food can be awful or mediocre; people struggle to understand you; lines will be long and the weather will be bad; the list is endless. There is nothing you can do about it so you learn to close your eyes and play back that gorgeous sunset you watched the previous day. Beats any TV show you’ve seen. The kaleidoscope of your world vision changes. You find people are basically the same all over the world yet wonderfully different.
9) Fear of Food
Something as basic as food, in a foreign country, becomes a huge challenge for many people. In many cases it either throws them off travelling or they only go where ‘the water is safe.’ However, eating the local food is just as important as seeing the sights. You won’t fully appreciate the culture of the country until you have dipped your fingers into a bowl of spicy Indian curry; fumbled clumsily with chopsticks in a Vietnamese or Thai restaurant; have your eyes water from biting down on a hot chilli. Oh the magic when you do start to enjoy the amazing flavours that coconut, ginger, garlic, onions and hundreds of other spices bring to a dish. You will never go with ‘bland’ again. The taste of calamari or the aroma of a fresh mackerel fried in red chilli, onion and garlic paste on a Goa beach will never quite leave you. Long after you return from your travels you will find that it is the memory of a dish that will prod you to relive your travel experiences. The taste buds never forget for they will have changed and adapted as much as you.
10) Your horizons get wider and higher
Your changed world view will come from a wide variety of influences and an infinite number of directions. Many of these experiences will be small and seemingly inconsequential but they will stay with you. It could be gazing at a sunset on a beach in Bali or a long conversation with a total stranger as you both cup hands around steaming mugs of tea under a bamboo shelter somewhere in Laos. You will lose the fear of moving to a strange city; you will embrace the challenge of starting anew; you have trekked the world; got out of uncomfortable and difficult situations; been a stranger in every place yet come away with friends. Travel will give you skills, experiences, knowledge and the ability to navigate life better. It truly transforms you, makes you more compassionate, and opens your eyes and soul to the universe. The future is no more an uncertain thing; rather it is exciting place of endless possibilities.