How has traveling changed you?

How have you changed as a result of your travel experiences? What kind of personal growth have you experienced as a result of your trip(s)? Reply to this

I learn more about myself when I travel than at any other time. When I remove myself from everything comfortable and familiar, and step out from under the expectations people (including myself) have of me, I learn who I really am.

The first time this happened was when I was 17, and I was an exchange student. Living on the other side of the world for a year, I was able to figure out the kind of person I wanted to be. The challenge in the last 13 years has been becoming that person. I feel like I am at my best when I am travelling, and each time I come 'home' I bring back with me more ways to feel like that every day of my life. Each time I travel, I figure out another piece of myself. I've learnt things like what's really important to me, what kind of people I want in my life, how I want to be remembered when I leave a place, how the choices I make every day should feel to me...

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I have certainly become more patient. Years ago, if I had to make a three-hour train journey is would seem like an eternity. Any major delays and it would seem like a big deal!

Now, I think nothing of making a 12-hour bus journey. You just sit back, relax and get on with it. And delays? You encounter so many delays in travel that you soon learn not to get hot, bothered or stressed. You just treat it as a natural part of the travel experience and ride it out. After my first travelling experience, I came back to England with a calmer attitide and little things didn't bother me or stress me out. Reply to this

'The biggest change so far? I suppose it's that I don't drink the tea until the leaves have settled'

I thought as I sat waiting for the jasmine leaves to fall in my tea this afternoon in Kunming. I mentioned it to Alan, who looked at his Oolong leaves unfurling and pausing to think said, 'yep, neither do I.'

Travelling. It's increased my patience and I don't make snap judgements (so often) anymore! Reply to this

The whole purpose of my travels was to embrace change....my last 9 months on the road has been summed up... is my latest entry...'South America: simple things that keeps this world spinning.'

Some changes....I don’t need to own 'things' as much, I eat healthier, I listen to people and don’t but in as much, I am more patient with others, I appreciate sunsets and sunrises, I appreciate a great photograph in nearly everything I see, especially the people...but I now ask permission to take a photos instead of ramming a camera in peoples faces. I feel calmer, and understand when there is a hold up (not with robbers or bad people) more of a delay, that there is a great reason for it. My mind is becoming less chattery...only slightly mind, and my writing skills have improved no end!! i also realise that if your in a hole its up to you to get yourself out by doing something different.

About to embark on South East Asia and Im so excited, as I adore the east.

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I have been travelling a lot, searching the perfect place to relocate. Now I am in Cebu City but I won't stay here long. The problem is that a man from US has been writing me, asking to move to my house with his dogs for an year or more...for free, I need to pay the maintenance, utility bills!!!

Then I found out a lot of things about him on the web, on panamenian sites, he left a poor lady stranded in Panama last year after planning for three years, she sold everything to stay with him without knowing he was married and was a compulsive liar online... She was left without ANY money, no visa, no airfare, lawyers and workers were not paid either. She was evicted and harassed by the landlord. She sold a few jewels to pay food according to www.dontdatehimgirl.com.

Then weeks later the apartment in Panama was foreclosured since the colombian landlord had to pay several bills left behind by that evil man who went back to his sexless, boring marriage to an elderly lady in blacklick, ohio and the landlord could not renegotiate with the bank, losing her real estate license.

Guess what? He went back to his wife travelling to Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, Colorado, sending me the pictures telling he was going to get a divorce so he could move to the Phillipines and stay with me!!! No way, he uses a false profile telling he is a widow (his former wife (his sixth) ran away with a african american tired of paying his expensive paid dating sites, he was writing me and many other filipinas in My Space, Netlog, Facebook, filipinofriendfinder.com then i found the same twenty years old picture posted in many sites.

To make things worst this man had his Ohio home foreclosured in jan.2007, bankrupt in sept. 2005 then he went to kasakhstan using more false excuses to a russian lady on the web. Then he moved to Panama where he started writing me daily, he did not install computer at home and in this meantime the poor lady was scrubbing the floors, cooking for him and the men who were renovating the apt. that at end, were left without any money as well. This is not going to happen to me or to other filipina lady, i already warned many sites and immigration. Then I can chose my perfect place in the world, away from pathological married liars. Reply to this

Doesn't really sound as though you changed your opinion at all, whether to broaden or adopt an even narrower standpoint. I find it interesting how people's expectations are almost always met, we can always find what we are looking for. I am not American, and I find your comments are unproductive and off topic. Reply to this