Cruising the crowdsourced question-and-answer site Quora the other day, I came across the query, “What lessons have you learned from travel?” It got me thinking about how I would answer. Surely, I must have learned many deep, wondrous things. Things that have changed me, my life, the way I look at the world. Maybe, but none immediately came to mind. Instead, what bubbled to the surface was a more practical list of things you actually learn from travel.

Forget deep insights: What you actually learn from travel

The environment is not all that important to most hotels

Most of the time, even though every hotel has that little tent card in the bathroom stating that housekeeping will only restock towels that are on the floor, they replace any towel that looks to have been used regardless of where it is.

I’m one to talk. No amount of plastic bag reuse, blue box recycling, or keeping my home’s thermostat just above shiver range will ever offset the carbon footprint I leave behind from air travel. But seriously, if you make a sustainability pledge, follow through!

Emergency snack foods will save your sanity and marriage

It’s easy to lose track of time when travelling and to overstuff your itinerary. Next thing you know you’re ravenous. Then you’re trying to find a spot to eat, and nothing in your vicinity looks that appealing. Out of desperation, you eat substandard food. OR, you push yourself even further beyond the brink trying to find a decent place, and you become HANGRY. I am very susceptible to hanger to the point where Steve becomes panicked because he’s seen me have a lack-of-food meltdown too many times.

I’ve learned to always pack a snack. My go-to is a bag of nuts.

When travelling, you are better able to endure unpleasant things 

This is a legit growing experience born from globetrotting. If you lead a privileged life (and you do if you’re jetting off somewhere), travel hopefully creates in you a grateful awareness of that privilege. Whatever your routine daily trials, most of the time you just need to get over yourself and carry on.

I’ve peed and barfed in filthy roadside bathrooms, squat toilets, and in many many patches of scrub while on cycling tours.

I’ve eaten unrecognizable foods and hoped for the best. Often it turns out fine. Sometimes it’s the nicest looking foods harbouring bacteria that make you sick. I’ve been barfing one day and back on a bike or walking through a new town the next. I’d likely be moaning in bed at home for at least a day or two under the same conditions. When you’re travelling, you just have to push on.

We’ve found ourselves dependent on unsafe transportation a few times. We once took a taxi in Panama that required one of us to hold the passenger side door closed while in motion so that it wouldn’t fling open. Seatbelts are sometimes a curious luxury, and your hand often encounters an unsettling residue or substance when digging inside the folds of a car seat trying to find the buckle.

Consequently, seeing “expose” news items cautioning travellers not to drink coffee on a plane because flight attendants just rinse out the coffee pot rather than wash it before reuse strikes me as a ridiculous thing to be concerned about. Travel puts life’s minor woes into perspective.

Tourists are like school children

This is especially true when it comes to air travel. People push to the front of the line, take up more space than they should, and my pet peeve – crowd around the baggage carousel pressed up around its edge so that those standing behind cannot even see if their bag is coming. Air travel, with its laborious security screening, ever-diminishing personal space, and fewer and fewer services turns everyone into a cranky pants.

It’s local life rather than iconic sites that become memorable

I’ve picnicked in front of the Eiffel Tower, marvelled at the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza, and gazed up at the Hollywood sign. Despite seeing these images in countless Instagram posts, movies, and magazines, they trigger a momentary thrill. But, to be honest, the memory of those experiences hasn’t endured the way observations of local culture and activities have.

Happening upon a man doing his morning tai chi in Hanoi, encountering adorably clad Harajuku girls in Tokyo, and visiting Mumbai’s awe-inspiring Dhobi Ghat open-air laundry left indelible impressions. So too did the man in the small Italian town of Monopoli back in 2011 who was determined to have a conversation with Steve about his iPhone despite neither speaking the other’s language.

Bad things are going to happen when you travel

It’s a rare trip that goes just as planned. Extensive travel teaches you to expect something to go wrong. You’ll get food poisoning, become the victim of a scam or pickpocket, forget your passport in the hotel safe or your laptop on the train (all of these things have happened to us). When you’re out of your element navigating complex environments, stuff’s going to happen.

The good news is that for the most part, the bad stuff can’t ruin a trip unless you let it. Short of a medical emergency, you can overcome most mishaps. Yes, they will cause you stress and divert your attention for a time. But things have a way of working out in the end, and if nothing else, you return home with a story to tell.

What have you learned from travel? Let me know in the comments.

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