Traveling to find meaning in life: does it work?

Barcelona"When I was preparing for the trip, I was preparing to die," says Melissa, who left everything behind overnight and went on a trip to Bali. "I said goodbye to my house, my job, my partner... and I left, like when you die and go to the other side without knowing what will happen or if anything will happen."

More and more people are travelling with personal concerns. Usually the aim is to find oneself, and sometimes this means making a drastic change in life. The belief that we will find far away what we are missing here is a thought that often runs through the minds of young and old. "Adults sometimes want to escape because of a need to stop or because of disenchantment with life," explains psychologist Anna Romeu. "On the other hand, young people often leave because of the desire to discover what there is beyond what they know." This was the case of Tesis, who left for a year to travel through different countries in Asia because she felt that her daily life was too routine and the world too big. "More than expectations, I was afraid," she says. "At first I thought about leaving for a few months and my mother told me: «Don't be silly, if I were your age I would take an endless trip. Don't close yourself off to anything.». So I left without a return flight." What was supposed to be a three-month trip turned into a year-long trip.

Paula did the same when she finished her degree. She decided to go to Australia. "It was now or never," she explains. "The hardest part was the first day, when I arrived at the hostel, I left my suitcases on my stretcher and when I looked around I said: «Buah, I'm done. Now what?»Within a week she would surprise herself by finding herself surrounded by new friends and traveling across the continent.

The eyes of the traveler are the eyes of the present

"During our daily lives we operate on autopilot, in a predictable way. We have a full schedule and we don't pay attention to how we are or what is happening around us," says Anna Romeu. "Changing our environment and looking beyond everyday life, the landscape and what surrounds us, implies a change in habits and customs but, above all, what gives us well-being."

Iona is another of those people who left everything and went away. While travelling she started an artistic project in which, through a series of interviews, she collected the testimonies of the different people she met along the way. This allowed her to connect with other realities and, at the same time, with herself through dialogue. "When you travel you don't have the pressure of being who you are. There are no friends, family... who expect you to have a certain vocabulary, do certain things or adopt certain attitudes," she explains. "When I travel I can be whoever I want and start from scratch. It's a very nice moment to redefine who you want to be and how you present yourself to the world. Me now.

Introspection and spiritual deepening are often two milestones that many seek in these experiences. "I wanted to be able to be with myself and feel safe being vulnerable," says Iona, who arrived in Bali and began working at an artist sanctuary. The Tesis trip, on the other hand, took her to live for a month with Buddhist nuns at a monastery in Nepal. "The role of Buddhism has played a great role in that trip," she says. At that time, one of her best friends called her saying that he was going to India to see the Dalai Lama and they spent New Year's Eve there together. "During the trip, opportunities are presented to you and from one day to the next your life changes; that's why I had to learn not to plan," she concludes.

Although it may seem idyllic, there are also moments of difficulty, longing and a desire to return home. Iona has left again and is currently in the Philippines. "What I'm having the hardest time with is being away from a support network." She's been away from her family and friends for a month, so when she feels alone and vulnerable she tries to direct all her presence to her body and ignore what her mind tells her. The body is presence and, therefore, there is no suffering. "Nowadays, it's very fashionable to let go and flow, but when you love someone and want them to be in your life, you have to take care of them and support them. Finding this way of caring from so many miles away, with a time difference and through a screen is very difficult."

Going back home

Although going on a trip of this kind involves accepting a series of inconveniences and discomforts, the post-return shock is often the hardest and least known part. "I feel a culture shock in my own home," says Tesi. "I decided to return, I felt that it was the time because I wanted to meet my family again, feel stability and have a place that was my own, like my room. These are things that you take for granted and that you miss when traveling, but when it became routine I fell into a nosedive." In fact, I am now. She says that the only thing that prevents her from leaving again is money. Something similar happened to Melissa, who on returning home fell into a depression because she suddenly found herself without a job or savings. "I had a constant mess and contradiction in my head. I associated working with not being free and at the same time I depended on money to travel."

"When you go to an unknown place, uncertainty takes over you. On the other hand, when you return home, you leave behind something that has fulfilled you a lot, but you return home, after all," explains Paula. Looking back on the first weeks after Australia, she also says that there was a moment when she felt stuck. "I was back in the same chair in the same bar, with the same old conversations." She missed the life there, full ofinputs, and one day her friends called her to tell her that they saw her sad and disoriented, but that they supported her because they knew she was going through a period of mourning. "It's strange because it represents that home was my real place. Then I understood that you can also have more than one place."

Does traveling change your life?

"I think that change life "They are very big words," says Paula after thinking about it. "It changes the way you see and deal with it." Tesi comes to a similar conclusion. "Travelling is a rupture, it breaks all your patterns. You realise that what you thought was right is a construct created by society. In Asia they have a very different and decentralised life. They give importance to the community, to giving, sharing and taking others into account. There, nobody is in a hurry, they live slowly, people go barefoot... Only when you leave and you find another model do you understand that you create reality, constantly."

After a few seconds of silence, Iona speaks up. "I think you have the ability to change your life whenever you want," she says. "It's true that if you travel long distances with a purpose, you can have the time to change certain things that are not so easy to change from home. I am aware that I say this from the privilege of being able to go on a trip to find myself, since not everyone has that opportunity. I think that traveling allows you to change your life, it allows you to change your hand, it allows you to change your life.