Why You Should Absolutely Travel After a Breakup
I’ve traveled to over thirty cities in three different countries in the last six months. When I started this traveling adventure in January, it came fresh off of a break-up.
Yep, you heard me right, a break-up.
For the one person reading this that has never experienced a breakup, this is a moment in anyone’s life where they realize that everything they were accustomed to for the last year or so is now completely GONE.
Breakups are blinding and can leave a temporary and for some, a permanent hole in your soul that you most desperately want to fill again quickly.
If you’re not off filling the void by hooking up with anything that walks by, then typically your next go-to vice could be traveling.
It makes sense. Traveling can really leave you to your own thoughts and reflections and provide a new lease on life that may be a bit more healthy than “Netflix and chilling”.
Breakups aren’t bad reasons to travel.
I mean ask any Life Nomading team member and we will cheer you right along, ideally to Bulgaria (shameless plug). However, I think it bears a little reflecting on the intentionality of travel and the expectations out there for what you will get out of your adventures as you search for that “missing piece”.
You’ll get out of it what you put into it
Just like most things in life, you’ll have a shitty time traveling if you don’t make an effort to push yourself and step outside of your comfort zone. You want this life-changing experience, but if you aren’t willing to work on your travels you’ll have nothing but photos of you drinking frozen daiquiris on the beach somewhere.
And that doesn’t help you in re-discovering who you are as a single person.
You’ll Re-Learn How to Be Awestruck
Movies have done a poor job setting our expectations with travel (and most everything in life to be honest).
I know when I started traveling continuously for the first time, I remember stepping into that first new city ready to be mind blown and waiting for the Walter Mitty theme music to begin playing as I walked down the jetway. However, it just doesn’t happen that way. Unless of course, you are literally playing the Walter Mitty playlist as you step off the airplane.
Be patient, this is a process of re-learning how to be awestruck.
I’m not a religious guy, but I do think that you can’t force yourself on the universe in this way. You just have to be patient, be open to any experiences, and just let the life happen on your travels. Awe-striking moments will happen, I promise.
Your Perspective Will Be Worth Its Weight in Gold
When it comes to breakups it’s easy to get into this weird phase where you only see things in a certain way. You get self-absorbed and feel like the world is ending.
News flash. It isn’t, and travel helps you get over that real quick.
How? Well by giving you so many perspectives on life and environments in such a short amount of time that you can’t help but accept that your problems are just a small drop in the world of millions of people around you.
You’ll Learn to Be Single
Duh, right? But seriously, its a new territory for you and you don’t understand it yet.
Well, guess what, when you travel solo you learn real quick. The more important thing is that, not only will you learn to be able to laugh at yourself and enjoy quiet moments by yourself, but you will also begin to learn who could fit into your life in the future.
Traveling when single gives you the time to gather up all these global perspectives, bundle it up in your brain and come to conclusions about what priorities, values, and morals actually matter to you and thus gives you the patience to not force a new relationship until you find someone that slides into those respective slots.
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Breakups are terrible. There’s no way around that, but travel can help.
The beautiful thing about travel is that there is no right or wrong way to do it. The way you go about it is, and always will be, unique to you.