Transformative Travel: 11 Ways How Travel Changes You

When you are literally taking some distance from your everyday life and surroundings, it helps you to see your life in a new light.

I was very stuck in my career when I started as an entrepreneur, confused about what to do and what my purpose was.

During my trip to Senegal, I did a lot of writing and brainstorming under the African sunsets and magical mangrove forests in a completely new culture and way of life.

On the last day of the trip, I spent a good while by the pool at a Gambian resort , sipping a strawberry smoothie and writing intuitively what kinds of things I've always wanted to do, and who this all serves.

By the end of the session, I had a clear, hand-written blueprint for my business, which I actually placed on my office wall at home.

The amount of clarity I had there, and that it brought for my life afterwards, was life-changing.

One cool thing I do on most of my travels is start a new habit. It's just so much easier in a new environment.

For example, when I spent a week in Lisbon, I decided to start my mornings with Matcha instead of coffee.

(If you want a good one, you can order Matcha from Portuguese brand Prozis, and you can use a discount code sinimalism10).

This was partially inspired by the environment, as the home exchange place I stayed did not have a coffee machine.

Long before that, I had started doing a 15-minute mindfulness routine every morning. This is super nice before hotel breakfast, for example, as it sets the vibe for the day, without taking too long.

You can try these free 15-minute a day challenges

An environment where the new habits are even easier to start, is retreats.

Join a yoga retreat that always begins with a guided yoga class, followed by a nourishing, healthy breakfast.

You can browse my favourite retreats here.

The first example of getting new perspectives was more career-related, but you can actually get something to "click" in you in a new place.

I don't know how much you are into astrology or astrocartography, but it can be something to take a look at.

According to this map, you have certain places on the globe that align better for you.

I do feel super good always in the area where my sun sign is - around Morocco and Western Sahara.

Maybe that's why I always crave to return there, even after 9 visits. It weirdly feels like my other home country.

You may want to read my story on staying two nights in Sahara, or moreon my Moroccan travels

Sometimes you just need to travel to the other side of the world to pause and connect with nature, to see the beauty of simplicity of sunrises, lush forests, snowy mountain peaks or rocky beaches with turquoise water.

Nature scientifically calms down the nervous system, heart rate, and blood pressure. Staring at something natural in awe makes you forget about yourself and find a deeper connection.

If you'd like to learn more about what I mean, I recommend watching this video about spiritual awakening by Eckhart Tolle.

Even when things are tough during traveling, we get new stimulus that helps the brain form new connections.

You might think that, yeah, cool, in a luxurious resort, or fancy mindfulness retreat, energy flows, and it's easy to have transformative experiences.

But it's also the long waiting hours, cancelled flights, and unforeseen issues that strengthen and transform you.

If you are anyhow into wellness optimization, you might have heard about neuroplasticity.

It means that our brain can adapt and develop new neural connections, especially when the environment and situation in life require it.

This is one of the main reasons traveling actually changes you.

Personally, I have experienced difficult issues during my travels in Senegal.

We made a silly mistake when crossing the border between Senegal and Gambia, and ended up in a very dodgy place interviewed by border control police forces.

It was a scary and weird situation, and after the trip, I felt like it was not really the relaxing oasis with Safari animals kind of journey to Africa that I had always dreamt of.

But my everyday life issues got so small and mundane when it’s not like I am stuck in customs in a completely new culture.

So the tricky situations make you more chill for dealing with everyday life issues, and you know that you got this.

It’s like John Smith’s quote in Pocahontas: “I've gotten out of worse scrapes than this. Can't think of anything right now, but…”

If you haven’t travelled much, you might think that people in other countries are vastly different from you and your social sphere.

However, the more you spend time abroad and in new countries, we all have the same basic needs and the same basic emotions, for pretty similar things.

You realize this especially when you need help abroad:

You need to trust that they understand your suffering and know how to help with that.

You realize we’re all the same group of mammals, just wanting to experience nice things, avoid suffering, and share experiences with others.

That’s why it’s so beautiful to learn the quirky habits of other cultures and adapt to what makes sense in their natural and social environment.

When you don’t know how to open the weird window blinds in Spain, or why there is no toilet paper in Asia but water, and suddenly you are in a taxi going full speed on a highway with left-sided traffic, it brings you back to the present moment.

When the things you take for granted don’t work as you are used to, it stops your autopilot brain and drops you into the present.

Trust me, the humbling experience of feeling like a kid again, learning the basics, is refreshing.

You know, you can choose to travel a certain way. Nobody tells you need to rush through all the sites in a day, or do 40k steps just to get the same picture from Santorini or Paris that everyone else does.

You can choose to discover the destination more slowly and rather add depth than quantity to your trips.

If this does not sound like you, you can at least add a 15-minute mindfulness exercise into your morning to start the day correctly.

This is the kind of “10% that hugely affects the rest 90% of the day”, as morning practice really sets the tone for the day ahead.

You can try, for example, this free 7 mornings of Clarity challenge, which has 10-20 minute practice for 7 days on YouTube.

These tips will help you to make your next trip more mindful, wherever you go: 18 best tips for mindul traveling

The more you start to feel at home in new cultures and corners of the world, the less limited your life becomes.

Learning new cultures, languages, and sensing the different energies of different places makes you more adaptable, flexible, and chill.

If you don’t believe it, go test it yourself, for example, in some transformative retreats around the world.

There are said to be a few places on earth that provide good energy and healing. That's kind of the reason any sort of pilgrimage started.

These 5 places are said to provide unique energy.

18 tips to make your next trip more mindful

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My favorite retreats around the globe

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