3 ms·

I travel a lot and one big advantage of travel I've found is not necessarily all the 'cool adventures' but the fact that you're around strangers all the time so

I travel a lot and one big advantage of travel I've found is not necessarily all the 'cool adventures' but the fact that you're around strangers all the time so you're allowed to experiment with your personality. At home you become one version of yourself and people know you and treat you as such and you respond in kind. Everything becomes sort of routine to maintain the status quo. Travel is amazing because you literally have no preconceived notions or expectations from other people so you can experiment and be different versions of yourself and no one will be the wiser. You can learn a lot about yourself and others this way. It's also extremely liberating.

saryant 12y ago
I am the exact same way. When I'm at home, I'm always afraid of keeping up the same persona. I have very bad social anxiety at home, I'm terrible at talking to people at gatherings, haven't been on a date in four years. But when I'm traveling, none of that matters: > Travel is amazing because you literally have no preconceived notions or expectations from other people so you can experiment and be different versions of yourself and no one will be the wiser. You're 100% right. I go overseas and I have no trouble meeting new people, enjoying myself at bars and clubs, asking a cute fellow traveler out to coffee in Taipei or wherever the hell I am. The trick is learning how to bring that home. Still figuring that one out though I've gotten better.
- nickthemagicman 12y ago
  What if you can't bring it home? What if your home environment is arranged such that you're at a significant disadvantage or there's toxic situations happening that keep you socially anxious at home? Obviously your social anxiety stems from 'being at home'. Maybe there's actual tangible external reasons causing it at home that you're not even aware of....
  - saryant 12y ago
    You're probably right. My anxiety at home even manifests as eczema, such that it completely disappears when I'm traveling but reoccurs the day before I fly home.
    - Evolved 12y ago
      It might just be fear of upsetting the balance that home life provides even if you tend to gravitate towards the organized chaos to which you've become accustomed.
      - saryant 12y ago
        That makes sense. Much of my anxiety is just remnants of some real bad shit I went through four years ago. Part of my reluctance towards getting close to people is a fear that I'll fall into the same situation I was in back then.
derekp7 12y ago
When I was in my 20's, I'd do something similar, but at different bars / clubs. One bar felt very much like a "Cheers" type of bar (comfortable, felt like a second home). Another was a Country / Western dance club type, where I was a totally different person. Not to mention my work persona, etc.
jordanpg 12y ago
This has a lot more to do with your personality than travel, I think. To me, genuinely being myself is the thing that's liberating; the added stressors of travel do little to with finding clarity in this realm.
- nickthemagicman 12y ago
  Not trying to get all hippie dippie or existential but I think your personality is strongly influenced by your environment so 'being yourself' you're talking about is just one 'version' of yourself. There's a genetic component for sure... but environment is huge I think. Indeed the definition of human growth is built upon changing yourself and exposing yourself to novel situations/environments and stress-ors where you have to become a 'new version' of yourself..whether more competent, more wary, more upbeat, more physically capable, etc. in order to overcome the challenges. However, I don't think you have to travel to Costa Rica and stay in a eco-friendly yurt in a rainforest for this. Just somewhere significantly far away where you don't have to maintain any sort of status quo. Pittsburg is as good as Paris in this regard.
pud 12y ago
You can also just be yourself, all the time, wherever you are.
- icebraining 12y ago
  What makes you think there's such thing as a single "yourself"?
- nickthemagicman 12y ago
  Haha, the psychology of the 'self' is very very interesting and a little scary. Do you think all of your thoughts are 'completely original' and created by you? Or do you think that most of your thoughts stem from things you have experienced in the direct environment of your life and your overall personality,goals,likes and dislikes are built upon these thoughts and experiences? And therefore by changing your environment and experiences you would be a completely different version of yourself? What if you were born to a Saudi Arabian family? What are the chances you would be a Muslim, possibly signifigantly conservative, you wouldn't like the TV shows and music you currently like, your goals would be drastically different because the culture has different socially sanctioned versions of success, etc..... How much of you is really 'you'? Where does the idea of 'you' begin and where does the surrounding world stop?
  - vatotemking 12y ago
    Wow this is a great point to ponder
  - tedks 12y ago
    >What if you were born to a Saudi Arabian family? What are the chances you would be a Muslim, possibly signifigantly conservative, you wouldn't like the TV shows and music you currently like, your goals would be drastically different because the culture has different socially sanctioned versions of success, etc..... Yes, if both my genome and my upbringing were different, I would be a different person. Is this really insightful? Where is the insight, for those seeing insight here?
    - 12y ago

saryant 12y ago

I am the exact same way. When I'm at home, I'm always afraid of keeping up the same persona. I have very bad social anxiety at home, I'm terrible at talking to people at gatherings, haven't been on a date in four years. But when I'm traveling, none of that matters: > Travel is amazing because you literally have no preconceived notions or expectations from other people so you can experiment and be different versions of yourself and no one will be the wiser. You're 100% right. I go overseas and I have no trouble meeting new people, enjoying myself at bars and clubs, asking a cute fellow traveler out to coffee in Taipei or wherever the hell I am. The trick is learning how to bring that home. Still figuring that one out though I've gotten better.

nickthemagicman 12y ago
What if you can't bring it home? What if your home environment is arranged such that you're at a significant disadvantage or there's toxic situations happening that keep you socially anxious at home? Obviously your social anxiety stems from 'being at home'. Maybe there's actual tangible external reasons causing it at home that you're not even aware of....
- saryant 12y ago
  You're probably right. My anxiety at home even manifests as eczema, such that it completely disappears when I'm traveling but reoccurs the day before I fly home.
  - Evolved 12y ago
    It might just be fear of upsetting the balance that home life provides even if you tend to gravitate towards the organized chaos to which you've become accustomed.
    - saryant 12y ago
      That makes sense. Much of my anxiety is just remnants of some real bad shit I went through four years ago. Part of my reluctance towards getting close to people is a fear that I'll fall into the same situation I was in back then.

derekp7 12y ago

When I was in my 20's, I'd do something similar, but at different bars / clubs. One bar felt very much like a "Cheers" type of bar (comfortable, felt like a second home). Another was a Country / Western dance club type, where I was a totally different person. Not to mention my work persona, etc.

jordanpg 12y ago

This has a lot more to do with your personality than travel, I think. To me, genuinely being myself is the thing that's liberating; the added stressors of travel do little to with finding clarity in this realm.

nickthemagicman 12y ago
Not trying to get all hippie dippie or existential but I think your personality is strongly influenced by your environment so 'being yourself' you're talking about is just one 'version' of yourself. There's a genetic component for sure... but environment is huge I think. Indeed the definition of human growth is built upon changing yourself and exposing yourself to novel situations/environments and stress-ors where you have to become a 'new version' of yourself..whether more competent, more wary, more upbeat, more physically capable, etc. in order to overcome the challenges. However, I don't think you have to travel to Costa Rica and stay in a eco-friendly yurt in a rainforest for this. Just somewhere significantly far away where you don't have to maintain any sort of status quo. Pittsburg is as good as Paris in this regard.

pud 12y ago

You can also just be yourself, all the time, wherever you are.

icebraining 12y ago
What makes you think there's such thing as a single "yourself"?
nickthemagicman 12y ago
Haha, the psychology of the 'self' is very very interesting and a little scary. Do you think all of your thoughts are 'completely original' and created by you? Or do you think that most of your thoughts stem from things you have experienced in the direct environment of your life and your overall personality,goals,likes and dislikes are built upon these thoughts and experiences? And therefore by changing your environment and experiences you would be a completely different version of yourself? What if you were born to a Saudi Arabian family? What are the chances you would be a Muslim, possibly signifigantly conservative, you wouldn't like the TV shows and music you currently like, your goals would be drastically different because the culture has different socially sanctioned versions of success, etc..... How much of you is really 'you'? Where does the idea of 'you' begin and where does the surrounding world stop?
- vatotemking 12y ago
  Wow this is a great point to ponder
- tedks 12y ago
  >What if you were born to a Saudi Arabian family? What are the chances you would be a Muslim, possibly signifigantly conservative, you wouldn't like the TV shows and music you currently like, your goals would be drastically different because the culture has different socially sanctioned versions of success, etc..... Yes, if both my genome and my upbringing were different, I would be a different person. Is this really insightful? Where is the insight, for those seeing insight here?
  - 12y ago