7 Things You Learn About Yourself While Travelling

7 Things You Learn About Yourself While Travelling

It’s tough to find time in today’s world. Work, commute, and a busy life around us do not allow us to notice those little details about ourselves that really make a difference. So when can we have time for ourselves? Well, traveling is a good option. Even more if we travel solo.

Travelling is the perfect time for deep introspection. Going out on the road forces us to examine all aspects of ourselves, be it the good ones or the ones we were always ashamed of. Life on the road give us so many challenges that test our innate patterns and reactions, our emotions, our likes and dislikes. Technically, you find yourself from within and from without, including these 7 things:

1. How much patience you have – When you travel, you learn to have patience with the things that are out of your control. Waiting for a bus for hours and spending nights at the airport helps you to become more patient in your life. You moreover learn not to waste your patience with the things that don’t deserve it.

2. Become more confident – While travelling you will grow strong, from inside, as you see how things that depend on you become accomplished. It is extremely satisfying to see all that you have accomplished so far – be it driving on world’s most deadly roads or something more subtle. This confidence, in turn, teaches you how to present yourself and how to interact with others – even if you’re shy. Confidence has helped me make friends on the road, many of whom are still good friends of mine.

3. You learn to prioritize – If there’s one thing that even the most uninterested individual learns while he travels, it is the art of prioritizing things. I’ve come to learn that we worry about so many things that eventually nothing seem to matter to us. However when traveling, and particularly when traveling solo, things tend to matter, as they have a direct effect on us. And we learn how to prioritize them.

4. Your view towards your material possessions change – There is no better way to dematerialize your life than going for long term travel. You learn how to live without so many things, you once thought were impossible to live without. Your car, your house are no longer the lifeline. You find a fine line between your needs and your wants.

5. You learn about your likes and dislikes – Since traveling has a sense of freedom in it – you learn about your likes and dislikes on the way. And without much influence or peer pressure from the society. This realization of the self is important more than anything in the world today.

6. You become more responsible – Since you are alone and any action would have a direct impact on your journey – you learn how to become more responsible in your life. You take your life in your own hands and you mould it as you desire.And in the process, you learn many life lessons.

7. You become more humble – Since you meet a lot of new people and experience different cultures, you become more aware of the world and learn how to become humble to other people. And like they say, if you learn to love other, you’ll learn to love yourself and have compassion for your neighbours, fellow friends, and every other man in this world. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A full time travel writer/photographer, Dev quit his job in 2015 to travel the world. He now runs a blog, where he shares his stories with others, and inspire them to realise their travel dreams.