Has Traveling Changed You?

Saturday, 08 August 2009

Has Traveling Changed You?
post by SKYLAB of Art of Backpacking.com

Traveling can be an eye opener. Set out to distant lands with very little material goods. Your mind forces you to be social interacting with total strangers. You may have not said Thank You so many times in one day let alone in a different language.
Common sense and your natural instincts are used much more often since you don’t have anyone by your shoulder (Mom? Dad?) telling you right from wrong. Ordering food can at times become a mission. Having patience is key to surviving all situations. If you’re traveling solo, there’s no one to complain to and you just simply move forward. Traveling makes you use a part of your brain that wasn’t used at home.

I’m traveling at the moment and I’m not sure if I’ve changed or not. What defiantly has changed though is a bigger smile everyday.

Has traveling changed you? If so, how? For the better or worse? While material goods are not as important while traveling, do you still feel the same when you returned home?

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Comments (13)

Traveling has made me feel more empowered to do things I would've otherwise thought improbable/impossible.
- 8/8/2009 11:48 AM
- methodElevated@xanga (message)
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Traveling lets me go to places that I thought was impossible and do things that I thought were impossible. I learn about different cultures and traditions and to me, that's better than any materialistic goods.
- 8/8/2009 2:08 PM
- S0N1@xanga (message)
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Traveling has brought me out of my shell and awakened new passions in me.
- 8/8/2009 5:43 PM
- joyouswind@xanga (message)
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Traveling makes me want to see more and more places.
- 8/8/2009 8:57 PM
- Blueberry_xh@xanga (message)
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travelling made me learn alot about other cultures !
- 8/8/2009 9:09 PM
- thiqu@xanga (message)
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travelling does inevitably impact a person, whether that person realises it or not. the question to ask therefore is not whether it has changed the reader, but how the reader has changed by having travelled.
- 8/8/2009 9:36 PM
- datchgym@xanga (message)
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traveling has totally changed me, in many ways, i've meet so many people, and I just got back from the best trip ever in the San Juan Islands. I keep a traveling journal because of it. i'll continue to meet new people, change lives and have others change my life too.
- 8/8/2009 10:24 PM
- xx_ng_xx@xanga (message)
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I haven't traveled much, but last year I took a life changing trip. I went on six plane flights in a month, and when I got back home I basically changed everything about my life. It was the influence of all the people I met and lived with. I think I didn't answer your question correctly.
- 8/9/2009 1:56 AM
- Dog_Lover_4_Life@xanga (message)
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I backpacked in Europe 3 years ago, and I feel it changed me. I used to be so afraid of reading maps, getting lost, and asking for directions--but after those 3 weeks I am no longer afraid. I now love to explore, and it also sparked an interest in photography and capturing the essence of a foreign place.
- 8/9/2009 3:34 PM
- lil_squirrel4ever@xanga (message)
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When I was going to college out-of-state, I definitely had to readjust the way I did things and my independence level skyrocketed. I appreciated the time when I was at school because I could make my own decisions and I wasn't really under anyone else's control except my own. But I also loved going back home because everything is more special when you've been away from it for so long. You learn not to take things for granted.
- 8/9/2009 4:24 PM
- importantnonsense@xanga (message)
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wow good question...I am definitely more tolerate of the differences between cultures, religion and races...I am also more appreciative of the freedoms and privileges we often take for granted as Americans. I have traveled and worked in more than 30 countries and although I see positive things that perhaps we should adopt for ourselves the good old USA has it all.
j
- 8/9/2009 5:02 PM
- Gentemann@xanga (message)
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Oh yes... I was able to go to Taiwan for two weeks with a group and stay at a family's house there. It was certainly an eye-opening experience. When I got back home, I felt totally independent. I learned how to manage around busy, foreign streets, how to have a conversation with someone who knows pretty much no English, and most importantly, I figured out a little bit more about me.
Actually, coming home to the US, once we arrived to LAX, I felt extremely depressed.
Airports in Japan/Taiwan are so much more friendlier, cleaner, overall nicer. It hadn't quite hit me until we arrived at LAX to go back home that my trip was over, and I was back to my normal life.
It was funny, because before the trip, when we arrived at LAX, the airport didn't seem so bad. It was actually kind of cool. It's interesting how my opinion changed once seeing other things.

I also came to the conclusion that I would like to move to a different country sometime during my life...I felt as if the United States wasn't my place to be.
Strange, maybe, but I felt so out of place when we got back to the US, whereas in Taiwan and everywhere else, even though appearance-wise, I stuck out like a sore thumb, I felt like I was right at home. I felt like I belonged.
- 8/10/2009 4:04 AM
- guiltyofthis@xanga (message)
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Yeah, it helped me realise how much I dislike tropical islands.
It was still important for me to get online over there... I don't know what else I would've done, to be honest.
- 8/10/2009 5:13 AM
- Vacantwhispers@xanga (message)
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