How Traveling Shapes Your Personality

Do you know why some people are so stress-free?

Because they travel more. Out of 7.7 billion millennial, 58% state they love to travel solo while 78% say they travel to see more of the world and do something new.

We all have heard about the immense positive effects of vacationing on physical and mental health. You take off your mind from a stressful job try mouthwatering street food, see new places, and meet new people.

But the traveling shape personality. It completely changes who we are. Yes, you heard it right. It is now proven that traveling shape personality.

Eight Ways Traveling Shape Personality With or Without Friend and Family

Read on to know how you can get a better version of yourself by just traveling.

1. Develops your willingness to embrace change

Packing your bags and going on a solo trip changes everything automatically.

Different time zones, clothing, food, architecture, currency, language and many other things come into play. As you move around a new place, you accept the changes (sometimes expected and sometimes unexpected).

See how beautifully this travel blogger and American content creator Alyne Tamir is carrying the eastern cultural dresses while being in Pakistan.

2. It makes you more self-aware

When you’re more open to others, you understand yourself better.

A recent study shows that when you move to a new place and encounter unfamiliar situations with different people, you reflect on your own beliefs and values. Although this study was focused on living abroad instead of traveling, immersive long-term traveling will have the same effect.

Here, I am not talking about self-awareness in anxious situations. Instead, I am talking about our own behavior and responses and how it is seen by others. When we are at home, we mingle with like-minded people such as friends and peers. Being in a foreign culture is something entirely different.

You’ll quickly point out the subtle and not-so-subtle changes in buildings, food, and how people communicate. This is our chance to evaluate ourselves, whether we are good or bad, and in turn, we also become more conscious about portraying our own cultural values.

3. You become patient, humbler, and kinder

If you are a true adventurist, then you might know that exploring mountains and Antarctic polar regions requires you to step out of your comfort zone.

Sometimes no matter how much patience you wait, things don’t always go as planned: you might have to wait in the queue for one hour to get your food, your flight may get delayed, you get out of cash because the cheapest hotel has no room, or the restaurant you really really wanted to try might have been closed for renovation.

What you’ll do in all these situations?

Answer: you need to go with the flow, no matter what.

Plus, traveling is our opportunity to connect with humans from other places. We learn new languages and non-verbal gesture which allow our brain to understand their feelings and emotions. This automatically enhances our ability to empathize.

4. Travel broadens your perspective on life

Too many of us fail to think out of the box because we are trapped in that box named ‘cultural superiority complex’. To put it simply, you assume your culture to be superior while judging others based on their unalike way of living.

In fact, exploring new cultures makes you creative. You’ll learn new ways of surviving or something as simple as a new recipe; changing the way you spend time positively impacts your well-being.

You’ll start challenging the status quo and existing norms at home and make new positive changes.

5. It teaches you to live in the moment

We all are suffering from the sitting disease while our minds are always in a sedentary mode. We are obsessed with trying to control what will happen in our life.

Whether it is our relationships or planning an itinerary Instagram-perfect trip, even some of us are thinking about the likes and comments on our Facebook posts while doing office tasks. The future is a place where nobody can hurt us so instead of focusing on how to make the present more enjoyable; we tend to think about making our future better.

Originally, meditation and yoga are popular techniques teaching us how to stop worrying about the future and living in the moment; I’d never know that traveling can do the same.

Use these simple tips to unleash the power of now

Traveling mindfully means simply enjoying the current view and engaging in constructive things that have the potential to heal us from past mistakes and traumas.

• Pay attention to the small things around you, such as the birds singing, the sun rising, and the sound of the water.
• Smile often and perform a random act of humbleness such as giving your cookie to a dog or offer your seat to someone.
• Be thankful for what you have.

6. Traveling makes you confident & independent

Traveling isn’t necessarily about walking on the beach and enjoying the spa. For me, it means navigating the crowd in high temperatures, struggling to find a local shop, or facing language barriers. All of this can become extra challenging if you’re prone to anxiety.

Exploring new places naturally forces us to talk to strangers, find solutions to problems, speak publicly, and make social networks. All of this develops your ability to live comfortably and confidently in uncertain situations.

For me, travel is therapeutic. When you learn how to deal with travel stress, you actually learn some coping skills which help you in everyday lives.

7. You become more conscious about your self-care

Self-care and traveling have many commonalities, and that’s why both are almost same for me. In both cases, you physically remove yourself from the existing environment and do something different. For me traveling is self-care.

When I say self-care, I simply mean doing things deliberately (or detaching yourself from certain things) with your well-being in mind. For a lot of people, including me, the best type of self-care if traveling because it allows me to focus on myself and what I love.

According to Crowd Writer, it is the healthiest addiction because it detaches us from technology and allows us to leave the screens behind. This way, we experience the world with our senses instead of clicks.

When you develop a habit of doing self-care traveling, there’s no going back. It becomes a part of your life and your personality.

8. You start thinking like an entrepreneur

Confession time: once you start spending time traveling new places, smashing your comfort zone, and reinventing your thoughts and perceptions, you might not like the 9 to 5 office life (and that’s OK).

According to a study, travel should be the top priority of entrepreneurs. It develops essential business skills in people such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication. It also helps you learn some digital marketing hacks.

Traveling teaches you to trust your gut feeling, which an important characteristic of today’s business people is also. You land up in a new place and don’t know how to interact with the local people or who they are. Will you use your gut feeling or not?

The bottom line

All in all, travel shapes personality for the better. No matter if you are an office-going person or a 24/7 mom, go on an independent exploration or plan a family vacation. Everyone should make your move and improvise their personality.

Time is limited- spend it meaningfully.