Forewarning: this is a long one.
It is inevitable, travel changes you. It must. Just as any experience must. But travel in particular has the association of change. Young people going abroad to find themselves, career breakers who realize they haven’t been happy in their jobs, or lives, searching for something new, different, inspiring. As you travel the world is cracked open, you find perhaps what you were looking for, though more likely you find something else all together. You realize the world is full of opportunities you didn’t know existed. You see, and you learn, or at least you do your best to remember. You realize where you’re from isn’t so bad, and that there are more beautiful places to see than a lifetime permits. You also realize its the people, not the places that make travel so enriching. You become addicted to the thrill of travel, of discovery. But when you go home, you realize many of those changes you felt life altering are temporal. You forget, you get sucked back into the grind. But perhaps you are a bit better, certainly a little older, hopefully a little wiser, something will always be changed, even if you forget. And then you crave the person you knew on the road, you must escape the norm and find yourself once again, blissfully free of all the holds and false promises of the western world. The world gives you so much, not all of it joyful, but it imparts a stamp unique to those who chose to venture long term beyond their own shores. It isn’t better, nor worse than other lifestyles, but simply different, and once you’ve set out you can never be entirely the same again.

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