Travel Didn't Change Me Or Help Me 'Discover Myself.' Hear Me Out First

I love to travel.

I literally save 10% of what I earn every month for my vacations.

If someone asks me what my top three favourite things to do are, they would be travelling, writing and eating. In that specific order.

Over the past few years, I have travelled across India extensively and I have loved every second of it.

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I figured I should begin with that specific disclaimer so that you don¡¯t assume that this piece is against travelling. It's not.

But travelling far and wide, away from home and my family for days has really made me understand that travelling doesn¡¯t make me or anyone a better person.

Hear me out.

Travelling hasn¡¯t helped me 'discover myself' and we really need to stop telling people to 'escape' for some soul searching. Most people have become who they are because of taking control of their lives, following their passion, working hard day and night, reading extensively, picking up habits that make them happy.

No one has become successful by hopping onto a flight and going for a vacation.

Self-awareness doesn¡¯t strike you when you are enjoying a beer at a shack in Goa.

Confusion from your mind about your career or life in general doesn¡¯t go away when you are exploring the lanes of Bandra, Mumbai.

You are not a different person standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. You are you, no matter what city, country or continent.

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The virtue of travel is that it exposes you to other cultures, people and ways of life. It helps develop a global mindset, it puts things in to perspective.

It¡¯s exciting and fulfilling in its own way. It¡¯s also a status symbol. It sets you apart. It makes you nomadic, and interesting.

Though enlightening in their own ways, none of these things help you understand who you are.

If travelling does fundamentally change you, it¡¯s only because you¡¯ve done some important self-work while you were there.

But it¡¯s work you can do anywhere, and very few people actually get around to it when there¡¯s a new city to explore and a new world to get lost in.

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So why exactly do people travel? It¡¯s a reason most travellers will never talk about but let me fill you in.

When you travel you explore the world, experiment with new things, meet different people, sometimes fall in love and sometimes you make friends, learn about different cultures and then what? It¡¯s over. It¡¯s time to go back home now.

The hard part begins when you arrive home. You have to return somewhere, eventually.

Most people come home to family and their loved ones. Once back you are the shiny new object. Everyone wants to know about where you went and what you did.

For the first two weeks, you are busy with reunions because you are back and things are exciting and new. And then, it all just goes away. Everyone gets used to you being home. No one is going out of their way to make plans with you or spend time with you. You aren¡¯t the latest, most happening person anymore, you are etched into people¡¯s routines all over again.

But the sad part is once you are done with obligatory visits and appointments after six months or a year of being away from home, you are sitting in your bedroom and realise how nothing has changed.

As a result, you feel lost and confused. You are angry. You rebel. You try to fit in but you can¡¯t.

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You have moments where you feel like travelling wasn¡¯t worth it because nothing has changed but then you feel like it¡¯s the only thing you¡¯ve done that truly matters.

What is the solution to this side of traveling? It¡¯s like learning a foreign language that no one around you speaks so there is no way to communicate with them about how you really feel.

This is why once you¡¯ve travelled for the first time all you want to do is leave again. It¡¯s the need to return to a place where you are surrounded by people who speak the same language as you. Not English or Hindi or Mandarin or Telugu, but that language where others know what it¡¯s like to leave, change, grow, experience, learn, then go home again and feel more lost in your hometown then you did in the most foreign place you visited.

And that¡¯s why people travel to not find themselves but escape from themselves. This is why we¡¯ll run away again in the hope of feeling at home.