How Traveling Can Change Your Life
Traveling is an essential part of our lives, and we are not afraid to say it shaped our perception of many things. Traveling lets us grow. In this blog post, we would like to share with you our thoughts on how traveling can change your life, and eventually, change your life for the better.
How traveling can change your life? And is it possible that traveling would change your life for the better? Well, after several years of traveling, we are pretty sure that the answer would be yes.
Nowadays, traveling is an integral part of our lives, and many people cannot imagine their reality without it.
No matter if you are a long-term traveler or a vacationer with two to four weeks off yearly, you are probably asking yourself a question whether moving from one place to another is, in the end, worth your time and money.
Is there something else behind the desire to explore foreign countries than eating exotic food and relaxing on the white sandy beaches?
I and Martin have been traveling together for more than twelve years. During this time, we went through several stages.
When studying we did not have much money, therefore we traveled mostly around our home country, the Czech Republic, first. Later on, we finished our studies at university. But we still didn't have any money.
But that's the beauty of traveling, you often don't need much. Moreover, there are always plenty of ways to save money for travel.
Thanks to WHS, we have experienced living twice in foreign countries - we spent almost a year and a half in New Zealand, and then a year in Canada.
We lived in a car for most of the year in New Zealand. Not some fancy RV, but a small MPV.
We traveled long-term, a year in South America and Central America, six months in Southeast Asia. We also know how is it like to travel around a country with limited allocated time like the last time we visited Malaysia.
Most of our memories on traveling are positive, but we also experienced several mishaps, many uncomfortable nights, and long days, it also happened that things did not work out as we had planned them.
But when looking at all our adventures retrospectively, even at those unfortunate ones, we are confident to say that they all strengthened us.
Without experiences we gained on the road, we would not be who we are today.
Even though sometimes we had to learn the hard way, we know that every single experience was, in the end, beneficial, and traveling changed our life for the better. That's why we love it so much.
Traveling is not only about pretty photos, Instagram selfies, checking the attractions off the bucket list, and lazing on the beach.
The journey helps you form your personality, broaden your horizons, and the experience, both positive and negative teach you to trust yourself and your decisions.
In this blog post, we would like to share with you the ways of how traveling can change your life.
Put your fear aside, and after reading this article, feel free to get inspired by one of our journeys.
Change your mindset, step out of your comfort zone, and change your life for the better.
TRAVELING AS AN EDUCATION
Traveling is probably the most natural way how to learn things. Nowadays it is quite popular that families set off for a journey when the kids are small, so they can learn about the world around us without realizing it.
But even as adults we think traveling is great as it substitutes education.
Only this way you will learn more about different cultures, geography, weather, food, you will improve your orientation skills, learn how to communicate even without knowing the language.
The best thing about traveling as education is that you will never get bored.
There is so much information we would have never learned without traveling to foreign countries.
Sure, nowadays it is possible to google up everything, but nothing will replace the personal experience as the memory will stay with you forever.
During our travels, we could see the authentic life of people living in the Peruvian Amazon, we know all the capital cities of countries in South and Central America by heart, or we know how Bedouins used to prepare their food in Wadi Rum, the famous desert in Jordan.
In a nutshell, traveling will give you much more than tanned skin and photos you can show later to your family.
Regardless of your travel style and budget, there is no way you could arrive back from your trip and not learn at least one thing you had no idea about before.
TRAVELING BROADENS HORIZONS
One of the most valuable things about traveling is to learn more about different cultures, to see how people really live in foreign countries, to find out more about their habits and belief system.
Traveling truly broadens horizons.
There are so many cultures and religions in the world, that it would be a shame not to see it with your own eyes.
You do not have to agree with the way some people live, you can have a different religion, culture or life styles, but seeing new ways of living up close can change your perspective, and you can always pick and implement only certain things that will help you improve your life back home.
Most likely, when traveling to destinations far from your home country, you will come across various habits that can seem unconventional. On the other hand, we know about many travelers who found the principals in a foreign country so appealing, that they even moved abroad forever.
In these cases, traveling literally can change your life.
TRAVELING TESTS RELATIONSHIPS
If you see your partner only during dinner or in front of the TV for only a couple of hours a day, we think it is time to travel abroad together.
We stand by it that there is no better way how to test your relationship than experience something new and get out of your comfort zone.
Yes, at the end of the journey you can find out that the person you traveled with is not the one you would like to spend the rest of your life. But once again, this way traveling can change your life for the better.
We guess you do not want to find out that you are not able to solve a difficult situation in your routine life after several years of relationship.
As we've already mentioned, traveling is not always straightforward and many unexpected situations can arise.
It is hard to pretend all the time that everything is great when it's not, and the true personalities appear as they get stressed.
Especially during long-term traveling, it is hard to avoid conflicts.
But if you are able to solve all the issues, and at the end of the day you still cannot imagine life without your life partner and travel buddy, that's great news you would have never found out at home. After the long journey, you will for sure appreciate your relationship even more.
TRAVELING HELPS TO OPEN YOUR MIND
When living in our everyday routine, in a place we know by heart, there are not many things that can surprise us.
But what if you are sitting in a restaurant in Tupiza, and even though the waitress saw you enter, no one comes to serve you for another fifteen minutes? What if in countries like El Salvador some people will stare at you for no particular reason, and small kids even shout at you?
Despite the fact, that these situations seem small or insignificant to some people, many will find these experiences not comfortable or even outraging. But it is also great training for opening your mind.
Things do not have to go as expected, they even do not have to go as planned.
We think it is extremely important to open your mind, to acknowledge that things can work differently, and once you will accept that, you can transfer this experience to your everyday life.
Thanks to experiences from foreign countries, you will be able to rise above problems in both your personal and work life.
TRAVELING TEACHES YOU TO TRUST YOURSELF
Once in a foreign country, very likely you will get to a situation when you are left to sink and swim. And we are pretty sure you will learn how to swim very fast.
No matter if you are abroad with no one speaking your language, or you get lost in the mountains, you are too cold - as it happened to us when climbing to Tilicho Lake in Nepal - or when you need to find a way of transport quickly.
There is often no one to help.
Traveling teaches you not only to start trusting yourself, but you will also be forced to make your own decisions, that you will be responsible for.
This is something no job will ever teach you.
At home, we always have a feeling that no matter how a problem is big, there will always be someone to support us.
But when our phone was stolen in Bogota when we missed our flight in Toronto on the way to Calgary, or when we needed to find a job in New Zealand before the winter comes (we were already pretty cold while sleeping in our car and broke), we really had to rely on ourselves.
Thanks to traveling, we are much more confident in our everyday lives.
We know we've been through difficult situations, and we were always able to find a solution and take care of ourselves when it was necessary.
The well-deserved self-confidence is one of the most important things traveling to foreign countries can give you. Most importantly, very often (not when you are robbed) these lessons are free to get.
TRAVELING TEACHES YOU HOW TO DEAL WITH STRESSFUL SITUATIONS
We even cannot count how many times we were facing a stressful situation when traveling, but thanks to it we know how to react in our everyday lives.
Once in Malaysia, we were waiting for a pre-arranged taxi super early in the morning as we had already bought a ticket for a connecting boat that was not going frequently. Of course, the driver was nowhere to be seen on the set time.
We waited, Martin was then running around the village to find another cab, while I was trying to wake up someone who would be able to call our driver to get us to the ferry on time.
Situations like these are quite common, especially if you travel on a budget as we do.
Several years after we are better trained, and we deal with stressful situations calmly. Nowadays, we kind of expect that the driver will eventually show up. And in case he won’t, we try to have a backup plan.
Of course, this was an example of one of the least and very common stressful situations you can experience abroad.
It is important to know that all stressful situations will strengthen you, and most likely when thinking of it retrospectively, you will find them funny.
TRAVELING CAN SHOW YOU YOUR FUTURE PATH
Even a short trip can completely change your future path. Of course, the longer you travel, there is more time to think and reconsider whether you are fully satisfied with your personal and work life.
Decisions you will make abroad do not have to be somehow fundamental, but it can change your life indefinitely.
Often, travelers come home with a decision such as start eating healthy or learn a new language.
In our case, traveling completely shaped our future career and the way of our lives. Before our year-long trip to South America, we exactly did not know what to do.
Martin was a social worker back at home, I was responsible for the hotel's revenue, but we could not see doing this job until the rest of our lives.
Fortunately, during our year on WHS in Canada, we launched this travel blog, and since then our career path completely changed.
Today, we are able to combine our passions such as traveling, photography, writing, and working from home, and hope we will never have to look back.
TRAVELING IMPROVES COMMUNICATION SKILLS
When traveling in a foreign country you will meet plenty of people. To be able to communicate either with locals or with travelers with different nationalities, you will have to improve your communication skills.
As everywhere else, you might be forced to communicate with someone who is not your blood type, and you will have to deal with it. Sometimes it is also hard to communicate with a person with a different social and cultural background, and traveling gives you an opportunity to master it.
For us, traveling and living in foreign countries was a huge lesson. As English is not our native language, working in New Zealand and later in Canada was not easy. Also, when traveling, 100% of our time we had to communicate in English unless we wanted to speak only to each other for a year.
Even though our language skills are still far from perfect, we are really grateful that traveling improved our communication skills.
It also trains you to speak in front of people you've never seen before, and to make friends with people you would have never met at home.
Until today we keep fond memories on our cruise around the Galapagos Islands.
We were for a week on a boat with a very heterogeneous group of people, and even though we are quite shy, thanks to our experience we were able to establish a nice relationship with all of them and enjoyed the whole time aboard.
TRAVELING TEACHES YOU PATIENCE AND ADAPTABILITY
We live in a world where everything happens fast and on time. We are used to that a bus arrives according to a schedule, that the meeting will start on time, and even your time after work is planned carefully.
To learn that everything does not need to go as planned and to learn how to adapt to such a thing, we recommend you to travel to less developed countries.
Authenticity often lies in the relativity of time.
We must admit that it took us a while to understand that when a clerk at a bus station in Mexico told us that the bus would arrive once it is here, that he is really not going to tell us an exact time and that we will have to wait until the bus shows up.
We are not saying that in a long-term view we would be able to get used to it, but traveling in Southeast Asia or South and Central America gave us a lesson on how to train patience and how to quickly adapt to local rules.
We know that we still need a bit of accuracy, but after several similar experiences, we would not sometimes mind losing the strict ropes that keep us tied up in our everyday lives.
TRAVELING MAKES YOU APPRECIATE YOUR LIFE
We are absolutely aware of being privileged to live in Prague, Czech Republic. We are pretty sure we would not be able to appreciate our home country that much without traveling abroad.
Even though there are for sure many things that could be much better (like politics), today, after traveling quite many countries we also know it could be much much worse.
Seeing the poverty in Philippines, huge problems with plastic and trash overall in Nicaragua (and many other countries), problems caused by drug cartels in Mexico, or refugee problems in Jordan, made us appreciate our life.
Yes, some countries are doing similar or better, but after traveling in countries where the living conditions are much worse, we feel there is nothing we should complain about.
If you are reading this blog post, chances are that you are coming from first world or well-developed countries. We think it is important to realize that even the fact you can travel is a privilege and not something we should take for granted.
As we write this post in these uncertain times, we think that the fact that traveling is something we should be grateful for gets even deeper meaning.
TRAVELING TEACHES YOU NEW SKILLS
When traveling, we are often open to new possibilities. We are not saying that we always learned only useful skills.
In Martinborough, we learned about the process of growing (and tasting) wine when working on a vineyard. In Amazon Jungle, we learned how to climb a palm tree.
In Los Nevados, Colombia we learned how to use crampons and ice axe. In New Zealand, how to drive a car with automatic gearbox on the opposite side of the road. In Calgary, we improved our English skills. And so on.
For us, traveling is also about trying new things we would have never done in our country.
Either because of the lack of motivation, because of staying in our comfort zone, or because we do not have the natural conditions to do so.
Nevertheless, we are happy that we could try all these things and gain skills we might or might not use in the future.
You never know when they might come handy.
TRAVELING MAKES YOU ORGANIZED
It is not that easy to plan a perfect travel itinerary and stick to it. If you try it yourself, you will soon find out there are so many things you actually have to do before the journey.
Book flights, accommodation, transport, in some places you even need to do all that well in advance - looking at you Inca Trail - find out how to get around, what currency you are going to need, what to pack, and so much more.
After so many years on the road, we developed a system, as we know it is necessary to be organized first, and then it is possible to enjoy the beauty of a foreign country.
Once you'll make your system to stay organized on the road, you will easily be organized in your daily life.
GET OUT OF COMFORT ZONE
Having a certain level of comfort is amazing, but we prefer from time to time to get out of our comfort zone. Only this way you'll find out what you are capable of, and you might even find your new hobby when overcoming your fears.
I remember that I had to get out of my comfort zone quite many times during our travels.
First, as we always traveled on a small budget, we often slept in cheap rooms that are not comfortable in their very nature. But some of our adventures required a bit of persuasion as well.
From the top of my head, I can mention volcano climbing in Colombia, volcano boarding in Nicaragua and canyoning in Costa Rica.
Normally at home, I would have never thought of doing those activities, but here I was glad that I pushed my limits again a little bit further.
Traveling can often be challenging with all those adventure activities out there, but overcoming your fear is important, and you will often find out that you are much stronger than you would have thought.
Travel Insurance
We never leave home without travel insurance that was designed to cover our expenses if something goes wrong during the trip.
Travel insurance protects against theft, flight delays, injury, illness, cancellations, and much more.
World Nomads provides travel insurance for travelers to cover their trip essentials, including sports and adventure activities.
SafetyWing is affordable travel insurance for backpackers, long-term travelers, and digital nomads.
Travel smarter and safer!
TRAVELING TEACHES YOU HOW TO IMPROVISE
When traveling not everything goes as planned. To be honest, we would be very surprised if everything would go according to our original schedule.
Simply, traveling teaches you how to improvise.
On our last trip to the Middle East, we completely changed our Jordan itinerary only a day before the flight, because the weather forecast for the days when we wanted to visit Petra and Wadi Rum looked bad.
Due to severe weather in Fiordland, we had to wait for several days before we could trek the famous Milford Track.
We always make a room in our itinerary for such short notice changes, and always feel that an improvisation spice our travels up a bit.
Situations like this will help you to deal with unexpected circumstances, and you will always find a solution even in the dead-end situation.
TRAVELING MAKES YOU LESS MATERIALISTIC
When traveling long-term, we found out that we do not need much stuff. For the whole year, we had one backpack, where we had all our clothes for every weather possibility, all our electronics, hygiene, and that was it.
This experience allowed us to live a less materialistic life, and even now, when we live in a flat, we are not fans of hoarding up things.
We enjoy having only what is necessary and do not spend money on things we do not need.
TRAVELING MAKES YOU HAPPY
Last but not least. If you are wondering how traveling can change your life for the better, we have a simple answer.
Traveling will make you happy.
Hadn't there been so many reasons we mentioned above, we think this reason should have been quite enough.
Or at least for us, this is the main reason why we travel, all other things are derived.
Travel Resources
Here you can find links to all the travel resources we use and which you might find helpful when planning your next holiday.
Accommodation: When looking for accommodation, we usually search hotels via Booking.com or Hostelworld.
Tours: Although we love to travel independently, some places are better to visit with a guided tour.
We prefer GetYourGuide for its easy-to-use interface and solid reputation. Another great alternative is Viator.
Rental Cars: When going on a road trip, we always use Rentalcars.com, a reliable site for booking a rental car in advance.
Flight Tickets: When looking for flight tickets, you can search Skyscanner to find the best price.
Travel Insurance: World Nomads and SafetyWing cover against risks of travel.
