I was mowing the lawn today and my mind was idley wandering off around the world. It got me thinking to how i've changed as a person since I've started travelling....How differently I think from the things i've seen and experienced.

For me, I think the 3 main things that have changed are:

1. Perspective.

Never again can I say "I'm skint, I'm starving or I have a hard life" Seeing how other people struggle with NOTHING gives me no right to think i'm hard done by. People don't really starve or go homeless in the west unless they really want to.

2. Developed patience

Travel has taught me to take life easy, not to get wound up by trivia and not to worry about things that have no real importance in life. You have to learn to take many a deep breath while on the road and just let things happen at their own pace.

3. Understanding what really matters in life.

It's not a big TV, the newest Iphone or the most expensive car. It's the smile on a kids face when you throw him an old England shirt or the hospitality of total strangers. It's seeing turtles hatch on a tropical beach or seeing the night sky with no light pollution.


Do you think travelling has changed you as a person ?? For better or for worse ??

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Technician, BMW Chester Motorrad.
www.TouringTed.com
1994 XR650L
2001 NX650 Dominator.

Now that's more information than I care for interpol to know :/

I think unless you do all your travelling at 85mph on motorways it has to change you. It is likely to change prejudices and preconceptions as most of us are media fed as to what is or isn't in this world and the media I have learned is very manipulative and misleading.

On a practical note, I think I have learnt that whatever happens, a solution or opportunity will present itself when you least expect it.

On a philosophical note, I too have realised, or rather confirmed, that happiness is by no means all the silly trinkets I see people obsessing about. I still like the trinkets, but they are not the be all, and end all...

On a persponal note, I've seen myself as a very small part (much smaller than most people imagine for themselves) of a bigger and infinitely fascinating picture.... and I want to explore the canvas: a much as I can possibly manage...as soon as funds and Ural engineering allow

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

Certainly changed me as a person.

Too much time spent on trip planning and not enough on family planning

Jenny and Ollie's Big Trip

Love it!

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

Nice one Ollie

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Current trip BA to NYC: www.facebook.com/curryhunt

India and back 2009/2010:

Simple,I never came back!
Al thebarkingspider

Congratulations to the both of you..........!

Thought of how your gonna move the baby yet, here's an idea..!

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Geoffshing

'Security is a product of one's own imagination, it does not exist in nature as a rule, life is either a daring adventure or nothing.'

Great picture

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.

Same as Al - never stopped.
Got less worried by the conventional things in life....

S

Couldn't have put it better Ted.
Far too many people have lost their grip on what's important in life - people; plants; animals; oceans and the air we breathe....

But there must be something different about those of us who notice this - many people "travel" but see and hear nothing!

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Elaine

Striving to live the ordinary life in a non ordinary way

That seems to be because a lot of people take an "envelope" of their normal lives with them, it restricts their vision.
Personally I love being on the road,it brings you closer to everything somehow,even if its only a short trip.
Andy

Yeah ! You're right.

How many people do you see get off the coach and dive straight into an Internet cafe then straight to the burger joint over the road. Usually followed by the Irish bar before falling asleep in a cosey hotel/hostel with Satalite Tv showing all the American shows you get rammed down your throat at home.




Nothing wrong with that now and then. Everyone missis home from time to time and needs to "plug in" for blogs, emails etc, but when it's all you do, you really miss out !!

I feel really sorry for those guys on the coach trips. They really don't see anything off the gringo trail which is usually completely opposite of what the country really offers.

I remember talking to some great guys in South America who had visited the same countries as me. We swapped blogs. They were AMAZED just how much money they had spent seeing nothing at all. They said they were going to buy bikes

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Technician, BMW Chester Motorrad.
www.TouringTed.com
1994 XR650L
2001 NX650 Dominator.

Now that's more information than I care for interpol to know :/

Other than some weird hair growth, I don't think its changed me a bit.

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quastdog
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Having enjoyed the privilege of living and working in a number of countries other than the one I was born in (they are no longer “foreign” to me) I’m not sure travelling gives us that much insight into other countries and cultures. No doubt there is a difference between the traveller who takes the time and effort to immerse themselves in the local culture, and the tourist* who gets the limo transfer from airport to resort and never meets a local unless they accidentally meet the domestic staff, but the former has still only scratched the surface, albeit rather deeper than the latter.

So have I done much more? No. Every time I worked overseas I knew I would return home at the end of that job. Even now that I am planning a permanent move I will remain an outsider to some extent, because I have not had the same growing experiences as my soon to be neighbours, and my parents did not pass down to me the same history theirs did (that said, there are towns in Oxfordshire where new arrivals remain incomers until the third generation at least).

Or to express the same thought more succinctly: what frinch11 said.

*Deliberate misuse of traveller & tourist in a value based way; some self styled travellers see no more than the average tourist, some tourists make the effort and see as much as the more narrow minded travellers.

Hey Ted, how many coach trips have you been on /experienced?

I did one once, back in the summer of 1990 with Wallace Arnold - now WAShearings. It was a 12-day 'whistle-stop' tour of west/central Europe. Itinerary: a Cross Channel ferry to Calais ~~> through Belgium ~~> Heidelberg (Germany) ~~> Salzburg (Austria) ~~> Vienna (Austria) ~~> Venice (Italy) ~~> Italian Lakes ~~> Lucerne /Engelberg (Switzerland) ~~> Paris (France) ~~> Home.

I took my boy (then 13 yo); it was the first time abroad for him. We had a great time* - with a super-funny/hilarious bunch of fellow coach travellers.

I went back two years later (1992), and replicated the whole trip on my first 'BAMBI' (Born Again Middle-aged Biker) foreign ride.

My son (Mark) - who's now a schoolteacher in New Zealand - took a classroom-load of Kiwi kids on more-or-less exactly the same tour in April 2008. The kids loved it all; for most it was their first OE. Mark will no doubt return to England and ride the route on his 650 V-Strom one day.

Maybe these coach tours can 'whet the appetite' for independent travel (by any means). They do no harm, trust me.

Cheers

KEITH

* Guess that makes me a sad b_stard, eh ..

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Right Way Round ...