Is traveling the only way to get to know yourself?

This past Christmas break, I took a 10-day trip to Taiwan. It was the first time I have gone on a solo trip. I didn’t have fond memories of traveling solo when I did it in the past. Truthfully, they were never really fully "solo trips", it was often me arriving early before my friends arrived. I do remember though, that they were filled with lonely dinners and aimlessly wandering around touristy spots alone. But for some reason, I had forgotten those experiences on my recent trip to Taiwan. Before I left, I actually looked forward to spending that time by myself, convinced I’d gain a sense of peace from it or at least learn something about myself and discover something amazing and new. It was a strange change of mindset, considering my previous feelings. After my trip, I had wondered where this idea came from.

I soon came to understand that it mostly came from this narrative that I started to believe, that through the romanticised idea of solo travelling and seeing the world, I would find my deep sense of happiness and fulfilment. I mean, isn’t that what travel influencers encourage us to believe? to lean into our wanderlust and go somewhere alone and be amazed at what you’ll discover? In reality, those solo days were the same as my past experiences being alone. I was tired, and wished there was someone there to share my experience with. The overall solo experiences felt incredibly boring and anti-climatic, even if I meticulously packed events to attend. Towards the end, I was beginning to conclude that I did not enjoy my trip nor had I learnt anything about myself. If anything, I felt exhausted.  

A few months before my trip, I watched a video essay called “Eat Pray Love: A Nuanced Critique” by Quality Culture. It explored the social phenomenon of “Eat, Pray, Love” in the early 2000s, both from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book and the movie featuring Julia Roberts. Nowadays, “Eat, Pray, Love” is almost a meme, with the quote being associated with cringe interior decoration choices made by free-spirited people. However, the essay went deeper into how the book and movie created the idea that traveling is the path to self-discovery. Like Gilbert in her book, it suggested that in foreign and beautiful surroundings, we’d heal and become better versions of ourselves. This idea still persists today, seen in our travel influencer culture and on travel TikToks.

On a ski trip last winter, an old acquaintance who happened to be invited told me that he was spending almost every weekend traveling the four-hour trek to the mountains to ski. Less than six months ago, he was overseas somewhere else, and then in several months, he was off on another overseas trip. “Just living my best life,” he said. To him, living his best life meant filling every few months with an adventure as a tourist, then working a job he didn’t like in between. At the end of winter, when all the Melbournians who had escaped to a European summer returned home, I began to hear stories about their travels and how it was a way to escape life. They viewed work as just a means to survive, but their true purpose was to travel with the money they had saved up. All I could think about when hearing their stories was, “Isn’t it tiring?” or “Is that all there is to life?”

Don’t get me wrong, I have done plenty of traveling in my life. In university, I did a semester abroad and traveled extensively while on exchange, and then even did an internship in Asia. After I graduated, I went on a dirt-poor backpacking trip in Europe to celebrate graduating university. To some, I would be considered to have traveled a lot. But these days, I have started to find traveling tiring. I just missed my daily routine and my bed. I missed sitting at home and doing nothing without feeling obligated to make the most of what I paid for. It was also tiring to walk 6,000 steps a day and be unable to communicate with those around you. Why don’t travel influencers ever talk about this? I wondered. Why don’t they tell you that sometimes you just want to sit in your hotel room for a whole day without feeling guilty? I like to believe that if it wasn’t in their best interest to sell their lifestyle as a way to make revenue, they’d tell you what traveling is really like. Where, like us all, they have bad days and get tired. That  travelling isn’t the life changing panacea they’d like to make you believe it is. 

Having spent two years in pandemic lockdown, unable to travel and with so much time on my hands, I learned a lot more about myself than I did while travelling. I learned to appreciate being on my own, my habits, and dislikes, and who I was as a person. There was no new scenery to take in or new food to eat. I walked and stared out at the same park I’ve been to since I was 15, and ate the same home-cooked meals I had since I was a child. I just had a lot of time to learn to be content with my surroundings and make the necessary choices to improve my life, rather than look for an escape. I think sometimes there is solace in familiarity. In every place I moved to in the last three years, I always found a spot of nature to stare at when I felt stuck with important life decisions. I found happiness in running the same trails or frequenting the same cafe. I don’t don’t believe there is one method for finding a self-actualised version of yourself at home, but I found that listening to what truly makes you happy and pursuing it,, was what truly helped. This perhaps may mean finding a job that makes you happy, friends that care about you, and surrounding yourself with kind and supportive people. Traveling may allow you to leave the things that make you unhappy for a moment, but your life will be there when you get back. It will be the same until you decide to make your happiness your own.

Not to discount traveling, I do think the one thing that people get from traveling is the realization that you attain from seeing a different side of yourself or getting some distance from the issues that troubled you back home. Being in a new place doesn’t automatically change you, but it does give you enough distance to gain perspective. Sometimes, when we are surrounded by our issues, we often feel stuck in the muddiness of it all, unable to take an objective view of how to get out or resolve them. While traveling, you get to forget all the little things that troubled you back home for a while. And perhaps when you’re on your way home after your relaxing trip, you may realize that the way you have been living isn’t what you wanted, and maybe you gain the confidence to take that very first step towards change. Maybe you might realise that the issues you thought were so complex and hard weren't as hard as you thought they were, because you have come to realise what it is you truly want or who you are deep down. Traveling can’t solve your problems, but it can allow you to gain a different perspective and broaden your worldview. And at the end of the day, it is you who needs to take that final step towards a life that is full of happiness.