10 Hints Your Long Term Solo Trip Has Transformed You Forever
Traveling is one thing – but traveling alone for an extended period of time is quite another. In many ways, undertaking long-term solo travel is the equivalent of beginning a period of self-transformation and change. You leave the person you “are” in your familiar surroundings of your hometown, and enter a period of creation. You create your surroundings, your circumstances, your experiences, and you even begin to recreate yourself as a person. Through long-term solo travel, you just can’t help but become the person you were meant to be.
After six months of solo travel abroad, I can certainly say this to be the truth for myself. It’s typically not until your return home, however, that the self-transformation becomes glaringly obvious. Have you just returned from a period of solo travel? You’ll know you’re changed forever with this subtle yet significant hints
1. You feel more comfortable in your own company.
What once scared you (the thought of being alone) now thrills you. You love being in your own company and feel totally self-reliant and independent. Perhaps you even now enjoy the commonly feared or mocked activity of dining solo.
2. You stop frequently to appreciate your surroundings.
Even being back in your hometown, you can’t help but bring that eternal tourist air into your everyday life. Walking around on the once familiar streets of your home city, you now stop to appreciate the small details you never recognized before. Perhaps you even photograph them.
3. You marvel at the small pleasures in life.
The small pleasures in life, you realized as you traveled alone, are what really counts. From taking a moment to listen to the street performer’s melody or simply laughing with a friend over coffee, these small experiences now reach your heart on a new level – and you marvel at them constantly!
4. You suddenly focus on the activities that fuel your passion.
You’re all about passion now, and you refuse to do anything half-heartedly. Wherever you go, your heart goes too.
5. You have greater resources of artistic expression.
Whether you took up hobbies like photography or journaling while traveling, you now find yourself with greater resources to express yourself creatively. Perhaps these beloved hobbies have even opened up a new career path for you.
6. You have the ability to be present wherever you are.
Having broken free of the routine day-to-day for quite some time, you gained the ability to be present wherever you were in the world, unencumbered by a schedule or worrying thoughts of deadlines.
7. You have a greater sense of awareness.
Along with that ability to be present in your surroundings, you’ve established a higher level of awareness, which has granted you with greater clarity, impeccable decision-making abilities, and an underlying understanding about life that simply wasn’t there before.
8. You realize that dreams do come true.
You just accomplished some of your wildest fantasies, so you now know that one thing is for sure: dreams do come true! Therefore, you realize that the world truly is your oyster. Perhaps you now have the courage and clarity to pursue that business venture that was once just a wild, improbable thought.
9. You have a more optimistic outlook.
With greater optimism in your day-to-day life, you may have difficulty connecting with friends who were once the closest to you. While this can be troubling and sad on one hand, take it as a positive reflection that you are forever changed for the better.
10. You are willing to take greater risks.
After plunging into a world of discovery, perhaps without a backup plan, and seeing firsthand that everything always works out, you’re suddenly more capable of taking risks while having complete faith that you will be taken care of.
