And here I am, with the “100 Travel Stories” blog recently launched and one step closer to fulfill my dream!

All the best Charles & Micki!

Good for you Mike. Enjoy Spain, it’s awesome!

Hi Charles and many thanks for your extensive reply, quality thought & time that you put into the matter, in all its dimensions. Through your wise & considered reply, insights & experience – which you have been generous enough to share with us all – you have answered several of my key questions/quandaries. I will write back properly in due course, as I need to properly digest & assimilate the many wisdoms that constituted your reply in order to render it justice via an appropriate response of my own. You’re doing a great job and are to be saluted, Sir. Keep well, in the meantime. Best.

Thanks for a great comment MM. You’ve added another layer to my belief that travel is good for the soul.

The idea that we might have positively affected someone we’ve met on the road (and not just monetarily) is a great thought. I do know we’ve encouraged others to travel more with our tales and have opened some eyes to places they might have never considered visiting before but the thought that we might have enriched their lives with just our visit is icing on the proverbial cake.

That being said, I do believe that every time a traveler volunteers their time to teach, to heal or to build in a foreign country they are directly affecting the lives of those around them so the concept of enriching others lives isn’t a foreign concept to me.

I also know that there are certain people that place themselves in certain locations where they allow the world to cross their doorstep and in their own way get to meet all the people of the world without leaving their home country. The impact of the visitee in that scenario can’t be measured.

As to your particular quandary, there is no easy answer. I do have a few thoughts that might help however.

The first one that comes to mind is your comment. As you yourself said, the impact that a visitee can have on the visited can sometimes be significant. I think this is doubly so if the person is volunteering in a foreign environment. The joy of enriching another person’s life can sometimes strengthen and empower the person who’s doing it. At the same time it gets you out of the house and helps occupy those spaces of doubt and sadness.

Another method could be to travel with a group. Though it’s possible to feel alone even when surrounded by people, one good thing about traveling with a group or on a tour is that it forces you to get out and see the sights. There’s always going to be others in a similar mindset and sometimes just the act of doing something helps the soul to heal.

Of course, when traveling, there’s always the possibility of meeting someone else that might help you overcome your loss. Though they may never be the love of your life, you just might find the joy of travel again that you’ve also lost. One nice thing about fellow travelers is that you know they’re willing to try something new, to put themselves out there and to broaden their view of life.

Perhaps the best advice I can give is to just do it in a different manner than before. If you always went here or always did that then do the exact opposite. Don’t be one half of broken couple, be who you want to be and see things that you’ve always wanted to see. Don’t think of what you lost but what you can further gain. The hardest part will be taking that first step alone but I can guarantee you every step after will be easier.

Life is a constant journey, whether we’re sitting at home or walking down a foreign path. It’s up to each of us to decide what we do on that journey. It’s shorter than we realize and all too often, we look back and realize that sometimes the easy path just made the journey shorter, not better. Get out, live life and be the person you’ve always wanted to be.

Travel can help but sometimes it’s just a matter of adjusting our attitudes. Either way MM, good luck with your journey.

Hello Charles and what a great article on travel and all the good it can do to the traveller! The insights you offered are reflective of a person (i.e. your good self) who is clearly possessed of significant wisdom, sensitivity, compassion for other people and optimism (even the way you look in your posted picture radiates optimism)!

I would add, however, that another important & positive dimension travel can have (apart from all those highlighted by you and the other writers/respondents) is the impact such travel can have on the ‘visitees’ (if there is such a word… probably not, but you get the idea all the same) whom we encounter in our journeys. I wonder if – just as travel can be a breath of fresh air for us – whether, by virtue of our presence among certain people, in certain contexts at certain magical moments in our travels, THEY too can experience a similar ‘breath of fresh air’ (notwithstanding the fact that we left our homes to get there, whereas they are already ‘home’ when they encounter us… unless we’re including fellow travellers from other set-off points in the equation).

At any rate, and back to the point I wish to make, the joy can thus be doubled, when we think outside the paradigm of ‘what it does to US’ and include the possibility (perhaps even the ‘actuality’, better still) of what it may do to others there! They may, after all, feel some life-changing effect(s) in their lives due to us being momentarily there, assuming there’s something about us (or oneself) that inspires them in some way that we are not even aware of. Perhaps in a conversation with them or a shared experience of some sort, they will have come out of it looking at the world, the human condition, etc, in a slightly different & more positive/creative way! Wouldn’t that be splendid?! Just a thought to mull.

There is a reason, however, why I have stopped travelling altogether (been over 10 years now, excluding mandatory & mundane work trips) but just for pleasure & self-discovery, I don’t do it any more. You know the feeling when you travel & see beautiful things, people and ‘just being there in the moment’… you inevitably feel that you wish for a certain loved one in your life to have been there with you to SHARE all those beautiful moments? Well… when they’re not there (& never will be again) due to having parted ways forever or due to death, doesn’t the sadness become compounded because they’re not there to share those special experiences with?

To each person, the answer to that question is different, I’m sure, and there is probably no absolute right or wrong answer there. The optimists will (legitimately) contend that PRECISELY because of such sadness, travel is highly recommended to allow for a process of healing, re-birth and ‘self re-definition’… and at some level, of course one agrees. But it also takes immense strength to summon sufficient optimism to do that, and my question becomes “where do we find that strength”?

Hi Moses, I sent you an email so we could talk about it. Thanks for the comment!