memorable travel experience essay

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Kathleen Boardman

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Editor’s Note: We know that many of you are looking for help writing travel experience essays for school or simply writing about a trip for your friends or family. To inspire you and help you write your next trip essay—whether it’s an essay about a trip with family or simply a way to remember your best trip ever (so far)—we enlisted the help of Professor Kathleen Boardman, whose decades of teaching have helped many college students learn the fine art of autobiography and life writing. Here’s advice on how to turn a simple “my best trip” essay into a story that will inspire others to explore the world.

Welcome home! Now that you’re back from your trip, you’d like to share it with others in a travel essay. You’re a good writer and a good editor of your work, but you’ve never tried travel writing before. As your potential reader, I have some advice and some requests for you as you write your travel experience essay.

Trip Essays: What to Avoid

Please don’t tell me everything about your trip. I don’t want to know your travel schedule or the names of all the castles or restaurants you visited. I don’t care about the plane trip that got you there (unless, of course, that trip is the story).

I have a friend who, when I return from a trip, never asks me, “How was your trip?” She knows that I would give her a long, rambling answer: “… and then … and then … and then.” So instead, she says, “Tell me about one thing that really stood out for you.” That’s what I’d like you to do in this travel essay you’re writing.

The Power of Compelling Scenes

One or two “snapshots” are enough—but make them great. Many good writers jump right into the middle of their account with a vivid written “snapshot” of an important scene. Then, having aroused their readers’ interest or curiosity, they fill in the story or background. I think this technique works great for travel writing; at least, I would rather enjoy a vivid snapshot than read through a day-to-day summary of somebody’s travel journal.

Write About a Trip Using Vivid Descriptions

Take your time. Tell a story. So what if you saw things that were “incredible,” did things that were “amazing,” observed actions that you thought “weird”? These words don’t mean anything to me unless you show me, in a story or a vivid description, the experience that made you want to use those adjectives.

I’d like to see the place, the people, or the journey through your eyes, not someone else’s. Please don’t rewrite someone else’s account of visiting the place. Please don’t try to imitate a travel guide or travelogue or someone’s blog or Facebook entry. You are not writing a real travel essay unless you are describing, as clearly and honestly as possible, yourself in the place you visited. What did you see, hear, taste, say? Don’t worry if your “take” on your experience doesn’t match what everyone else says about it. (I’ve already read what THEY have to say.)

The Importance of Self-Editing Your Trip Essay

Don’t give me your first draft to read. Instead, set it aside and then reread it. Reread it again. Where might I need more explanation? What parts of your account are likely to confuse me? (After all, I wasn’t there.) Where might you be wasting my time by repeating or rambling on about something you’ve already told me?

Make me feel, make me laugh, help me learn something. But don’t overdo it: Please don’t preach to me about broadening my horizons or understanding other cultures. Instead, let me in on your feelings, your change of heart and mind, even your fear and uncertainty, as you confronted something you’d never experienced before. If you can, surprise me with something I didn’t know or couldn’t have suspected.

You Can Do It: Turning Your Trip into a Great Travel Experience Essay

I hope you will take yourself seriously as a traveler and as a writer. Through what—and how—you write about just a small portion of your travel experience, show me that you are an interesting, thoughtful, observant person. I will come back to you, begging for more of your travel essays.

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Short Essay: My Adventurous Trip

A couple of short essay examples on an adventurous trip.

Table of Contents

My Adventurous Trip Essay Example 1

Traveling is one of the most exciting experiences one can have in life. It allows us to explore new places, meet different people, and create unforgettable memories. My recent adventurous trip was one such experience that I will cherish for a lifetime. The trip involved hiking through a dense forest, crossing a river, and reaching the summit of a mountain, where I enjoyed a breathtaking view. Despite facing challenges such as unpredictable weather and rough terrain, the trip was a memorable and rewarding experience. In this essay, I will share my experience of this adventurous trip, highlighting the challenges, the exhilarating moments, and the memories that I will cherish forever.

Our trip started with hiking through a dense forest. The forest was full of tall trees, colorful flowers, and chirping birds. The trail was steep and rocky, and we had to be careful while walking. The forest was so dense that we could hardly see the sun, and the air was full of freshness. We had to take breaks in between to catch our breath and hydrate ourselves. As we walked, we could hear the sound of a river, and after a few hours of hiking, we finally reached the river. The river was wide and had a strong current, and we had to cross it to continue our journey. We had to be careful while crossing the river, and we held hands to maintain our balance. The water was cold, and we could feel the current pushing us, but we made it to the other side, feeling proud of ourselves.

The highlight of our trip was reaching the summit of the mountain. The climb was steep and exhausting, but the view from the top was worth every effort. From the top of the mountain, we could see the entire valley, and it was a sight to behold. The sky was clear, and the sun was shining brightly, making the view even more beautiful. We took pictures and sat there for a while, enjoying the serene beauty of nature. We could hear the sound of birds and feel the cool breeze on our faces. It was a moment of pure bliss, and we felt grateful for being able to witness such a beautiful view.

Despite facing challenges such as unpredictable weather and rough terrain, the trip was a memorable and rewarding experience. We had to face unexpected rain and strong winds, which made the climb more challenging. We slipped a few times, but we managed to keep going, motivated by the thought of reaching the summit. The journey was long and tiring, but the memories we created were worth it. We bonded with our fellow travelers, shared laughter, and created memories that we will cherish forever. The trip taught us to be resilient, to push ourselves beyond our limits, and to appreciate the beauty of nature.

In conclusion, my adventurous trip was an unforgettable experience that allowed me to explore the beauty of nature, push my limits, and create memories that I will cherish forever. Hiking through a dense forest, crossing a river, and reaching the summit of a mountain were challenging but rewarding experiences. Despite facing unpredictable weather and rough terrain, we persevered and created memories that will stay with us for a lifetime. The trip taught us the importance of resilience, perseverance, and appreciation for the beauty of nature. It was an experience that I will always treasure and would love to relive again.

My Adventurous Trip Essay Example 2

My adventurous trip was an experience of a lifetime. It was a chance for me to step out of my comfort zone and explore the great outdoors. The trip was filled with activities such as hiking, camping, and kayaking. The beautiful scenery and wildlife sightings made the trip memorable. Overcoming challenges such as inclement weather and physical exertion added to the sense of accomplishment and adventure. In this essay, I will share my experiences of this unforgettable trip.

Hiking was one of the most exciting activities of the trip. We started our hike early in the morning, and the trail was challenging, but the view was worth it. The trail led us through dense forests, and we saw wildflowers, butterflies, and birds along the way. We stopped for a break at a small waterfall, and the sound of the water was soothing. As we continued our hike, we came across a steep incline, which was physically demanding, but we pushed on. At the peak, we were rewarded with an incredible view of the valley below. The sense of accomplishment we felt after completing the hike was indescribable.

Camping was another activity that added to the adventure of the trip. We set up our tents near a lake, and the view was breathtaking. We spent the night sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows, and sharing stories. The night sky was clear, and we saw countless stars, which was a beautiful sight. The next morning, we woke up early to go kayaking on the lake. The water was calm, and we saw fish jumping out of the water. We even saw a family of ducks swimming nearby. Kayaking was a peaceful and relaxing experience.

The trip was not without its challenges, however. We faced inclement weather during our kayaking, and it was physically demanding. The waves were strong, and the water was choppy. We had to navigate our kayaks through the waves carefully. At times, it was nerve-wracking, but we were able to push through and complete the activity. Overcoming these challenges added to the sense of adventure and accomplishment.

In conclusion, my adventurous trip was an experience that I will cherish forever. The activities such as hiking, camping, and kayaking, the beautiful scenery and wildlife sightings, and the challenges we faced made the trip unforgettable. It was an opportunity for me to step out of my comfort zone, explore the great outdoors, and create memories with friends. I hope to have more opportunities like this in the future.

My Adventurous Trip Essay Example 3

Going on an adventurous trip is an experience that many people crave. It is an opportunity to explore new destinations, push oneself to the limit, and create unforgettable memories. I recently had the chance to embark on one such journey, and it was an experience that I will never forget. My adventurous trip involved hiking through a dense forest to reach a remote waterfall. Along the way, I encountered challenging terrain and had to navigate through rough terrain. Despite the difficulties, the stunning views and sense of accomplishment made the trip a truly unforgettable adventure. In this essay, I will describe my trip in detail, highlighting the challenges and the rewards that came with it.

The first part of my adventurous trip involved hiking through a dense forest to reach a remote waterfall. The trail was not well-marked, and the terrain was challenging, consisting of steep inclines, muddy patches, and slippery rocks. The dense foliage made it difficult to see the path ahead, and we had to rely on our instincts and map reading skills to find our way through. The forest was alive with the sounds of birds and small animals, and the air was fresh and invigorating. As we got closer to our destination, the sound of rushing water became louder, and we knew we were getting close. Finally, after several hours of hiking, we arrived at the waterfall, and the sight before us was breathtaking. The waterfall was a powerful force of nature, cascading down from a height of over 100 feet. The water was crystal clear, and the surrounding rocks were covered in moss and ferns. It was a sight that made all the hiking and exertion worth it.

The second part of my adventurous trip involved navigating through rough terrain. The terrain was rocky and uneven, and we had to be careful not to slip or fall. At some points, the trail was so steep that we had to use ropes to climb up or down. The weather was also unpredictable, and we had to be prepared for sudden rain or wind. Despite the challenges, the sense of adventure and excitement kept us going. We were a group of friends, and we encouraged and supported each other along the way. We shared food and water, helped each other over difficult patches, and cheered each other on when we reached a milestone. The journey was not just about reaching the destination; it was also about the bonds we formed and the memories we created.

The final part of my adventurous trip was the sense of accomplishment that came with it. After several hours of hiking, navigating challenging terrain, and enduring unpredictable weather, we finally reached our destination. The feeling of standing in front of the waterfall, surrounded by the beauty of nature, was indescribable. It was a sense of accomplishment that came from pushing ourselves beyond our limits, from facing our fears and overcoming them. We took pictures, laughed, and savored the moment. It was a feeling that stayed with us long after the trip was over. The adventurous trip was not just a physical journey; it was also a journey of the mind and the spirit.

In conclusion, my adventurous trip was an experience that I will never forget. It involved hiking through a dense forest to reach a remote waterfall, navigating through rough terrain, and the sense of accomplishment that came with it. The trip was challenging, but it was also rewarding. It reminded me of the beauty of nature, the importance of perseverance, and the power of friendship. It was an experience that taught me to appreciate the simple things in life and to embrace the adventure that comes with it.

About Mr. Greg

Mr. Greg is an English teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland, currently based in Hong Kong. He has over 5 years teaching experience and recently completed his PGCE at the University of Essex Online. In 2013, he graduated from Edinburgh Napier University with a BEng(Hons) in Computing, with a focus on social media.

Mr. Greg’s English Cloud was created in 2020 during the pandemic, aiming to provide students and parents with resources to help facilitate their learning at home.

Whatsapp: +85259609792

[email protected]

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Real Life Stories

15 Travellers tell us their most memorable travel experiences – and how it changed them

By Jaye Hannah

Published on Nov 30, 2017 | 6 min

There’s no doubt that travelling brings you a range of emotions: joy and excitement, but also the feeling that you’re in unknown territory. One thing’s for sure though: travelling is probably the best thing you can ever do. Don’t believe us? Just ask these 15 Travellers, who shared the trips and moments that changed them forever…

RELATED: WHEN YOU TRAVEL FOR THE FIRST TIME, SOMETHING CHANGES IN YOU  

“The most memorable trip I have ever had was when I was 17 traveling to Vietnam alone. I was living and working in Vietnam for 4 months as a bartender (and ended up meeting my amazing girlfriend there too!). The most emotional part of the trip was when I was leaving back to Australia to visit my Grandmother who had been very sick. I felt like I lost everything (and even being able to see the person who I had come to love). I worked hard for 6 months and was able to find my way back here.  3 years later I live in this beautiful country and able to speak the native language while living with my girlfriend.”   – Lachlan Gordon

“A friend and I booked a spur of the moment trip to India after a few drinks. That trip was one of the highlights of my life, teaching me so much about culture, enriching me and teaching me more than any classroom ever could. The smells and sites and sounds will forever stay with me. That trip gave me the travel bug and showed me the true meaning of wanderlust.”  – Bala Walsh 

“My most memorable travel experience was when I was 12 years old I was lucky enough to be sent on a camp to Switzerland with children from all over the world who had also received organ transplants. Growing up being sick and having my liver transplant in 1998 at the age of 7 travel had never been an option for me, so this was such an incredible experience to be gifted. It was my first time on a plane and overseas. It was so special, I remembered being shocked at the sheer beauty of it all.” – Kate Elizabeth

RELATED: I TRAVELLED ON CONTIKI WITH A BRAIN TUMOUR. THIS IS MY STORY  

“Our first night on Contiki, we could see the Eiffel Tower from our accommodation…and we decided to walk to it! 3 hours later it was 2am and we were getting closer and closer – it looks like it was just around the corner every corner! We finally reached it and and we were in utter awe! I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as finding the Eiffel Tower at 3am covered in sparkles which lit up the night sky. That is what happiness feels like. In that moment, anything in the world felt possible. ” – Emma Walker

“I have only started traveling this year. As a child I wasn’t fortunate enough to travel as my parents worked to keep a roofs over our heads. It was a DREAM of mine since I was very young to go to Japan. I worked, worked and worked my butt off to fulfill my dream all by myself! I finally got to go in April to see the cherry blossom trees, I literally cried as we touched down in Tokyo. To see a whole new world was mind blowing! Travelling is made me so humble since then.” –  Maddi Lomas

“As a coeliac I found it difficult to locate gluten free foods in a lot of places, but I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying my contiki trip through Europe. We wanted some gelato in Italy and opted to walk around the streets to find some gluten free gelato. Finally, we found some – I then asked if there were gluten free cones as well, and when the shop keeper pulled out a gluten free cone, I confessed my love for him and his shop. It was so important for me to find traditional local foods so I could experience my European adventure to the fullest!” – Leslie Wickens

“After my summer study abroad trip to Italy fell through, my best friend and I decided to book a last minute trip to Europe. While searching for trips, we stumbled upon Contiki and decided to book. As Americans, we had never heard of Contiki before and really didn’t know what to expect. From this trip, I got to experience 6 different countries, watch the Euro Cup in Europe, and most importantly I met life long friends. I am dying to go back and as a teacher, although I have to work multiple jobs to even be able to dream of it. I work in an intercity where most students don’t get the opportunity to leave the state for a majority of their lives, due to financial reasons. My goal is to show my students that they should never let money limit their travels. With a lot of hard work, they too can see the world!” – Julia Gulia 

“I have always wanted to explore New Zealand and when the opportunity came up I just couldn’t say no. This group of people made the trip for me and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. They helped me to face my fears and try things I never imagined I’d be able to do. The euphoric rush you get when you compete your first bungy jump is one I will never forget!” – Kira Chow 

“My most Memorable travel memory was from a Christmas I spent in China. I was able to travel to a leper colony in one of the very rural areas outside of Guangzhou. There was one lady in particular who has rocked my world even to this day. After learning that they only have to eat what they can grow and the large bags of rice my friends and I brought them, she offered me and every person I was with this bowl of oranges. She had nothing by our standards – but was still willing to give all that she had. It’s moments like this that keep me hungry for travel.” – Arden Shanklin

“The moment that changed my life was in July 2016. I went on the grand southern contiki tour and I opened up the further into the tour I went (I’m usually quite shy) and have never been the same since. Because of this tour I wanted to be more open, so between this tour and my next tour in April 2017 I took the biggest step in my life and came out to my parents. Not only has travel physically changed me, but it’s helped me come to terms with myself” – Tim Savage

RELATED: WHY SPAIN IS ONE OF THE BEST COUNTRIES TO TRAVEL TO IF YOU ARE LGBT+

“My sister and I went on a Contiki to Scotland and Ireland. There was one night in Loch Ness when it was raining cats and dogs, so we were forced to stay at our hotel. Everyone was bummed at first, but then we didn’t really care, because we were cooped up in a hotel with some pretty awesome people. We sat and played card games and drinking games all night. It was probably one of the most fun nights in the whole trip!” – Kandyce Lauren

Do you have a travel experience that changed you forever? Let us know in the comments…

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A Memorable Journey: Describing an Unforgettable Travel Experience

5 February 2024

last updated

Introduction

A memorable travel experience that I once had taught me to cherish every moment, believe in the benevolence of unfamiliar people, and maintain an open mindset. An extraordinary expedition profoundly impacts the human psyche through its unanticipated beginning that ignites a thirst for adventure, the mesmerizing events through the encounter, and its poignant ending that permanently changes one’s perspective on life.

The Fateful Encounter

The adventure began with an unforeseen encounter that ignited my curiosity for the journey ahead. One weekend while browsing in a small, dusty bookshop nearby, I found a tattered old pamphlet tucked away on a bottom shelf that depicted a majestic scene of snowcapped Himalayan peaks glowing golden in the light of the setting sun. I was immediately transfixed by the splendor captured in this faded photograph, struck by an instinctive longing to explore those mountains myself. Walking home with the pamphlet, I kept thinking about a Himalayan trek. I had always loved natural places, but this leaflet made me want to see nature at its best.

For writing your paper, these links will be helpful:

• Descriptive Essay
• How to Write a Personal Narrative
• Personal Narrative Examples
• Who Am I Essay

Embracing the Unknown

Visiting the Himalayas was a unique, intriguing experience. From the minute when I arrived, I felt connected to the beautiful landscape and massive peaks. Each new day in the mountains brought unexpected adventures and eye-opening beauty. I relished trekking through dense, mysterious woods draped in moss, looking for exotic wildlife that crossed my path, from graceful mountain goats to brilliantly plumed pheasants. From majestic evergreens to delicate alpine wildflowers peeping out of the stony soil, the diversity of flora captivated me. Throughout the days, I met voyagers from around the world, all drawn to the magnetic power of the Himalayas. Despite language barriers, we bonded quickly through shared challenges and simple acts of kindness in the harsh alpine environment. One highlight was witnessing a magnificent sunset far above the tree line, the sun sinking below the jagged snowcapped ridges.

Farewell to the Peaks

The Himalayas filled me with awe each day, reminding me how little I knew of nature’s splendor and might. I opened myself fully to embracing the unknown wonders that lay ahead. As my time in the Himalayas ended, I felt bittersweet emotions. While I felt nostalgic leaving this magical place, I also looked forward to returning home and sharing my experiences. After planning for future reunions with new friends, I realized that this journey had become part of me. Besides being a justified escape from daily life, the encounter enriched me and altered my perspective. I profoundly appreciate the wonders of the natural world. The Himalayas trip wove lifelong memories into the fabric of my being.

An unforgettable voyage unlocks the essence of wanderlust through its unexpected beginning, captivating events, and poignant ending. This expedition strengthened my desire for exploration, self-discovery, and connecting with people and nature. It revealed that life’s most rewarding moments exist beyond one’s comfort zone. What is the lesson? This encounter taught me to embrace the unknown, cherish each moment, and find beauty even in the endings.

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

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Travel: Personal Experience

One of my passions is travelling. Travel involves visiting new places and meeting new people and having varied experiences. I come originally from Romania and have travelled to UK and US. I remember the quote by Samuel Johnson: “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it”. I have had the luck of visiting better countries and I believe my travel experiences have taught me a lot about human life and helped me expand the way I see things.

When I first travelled within Romania, it opened my eyes to how other people live. I saw how people lived happily even though they did not have much money or luxuries. It taught me that to be happy, money is not the only thing. I must have an attitude to be happy with what I have. It also taught me to accept people from different races and colors. When I travelled abroad, I saw new cultures and different lifestyles.

It was very exciting and adventurous. I learnt to enjoy these new experiences, to become part of these varied cultures by taking their food, wearing their dresses, etc. This has created in me the awareness that people all over the world are basically the same but they are different in the cultures – have different ways of talking, singing, enjoying, dancing, writing, building, dressing and conducting business. I have acquired a more global perspective of the world we live in. My knowledge has thus expanded because of my travel.

Self-confidence is another quality that I developed as a result of travelling. Whenever I travel, I had to be responsible for my own luggage, tickets and documents. I had to be careful in taking flights and cabs. When I was in my home country, I used to be shy to talk to new people. But during my travels, I learnt to talk to strangers and ask for help whenever I needed it. This gave me the confidence that I can make new friends. Also, new places sometimes had new customs that I had to adapt to.

Travel is the time I use to read and listen to music. This also gives me the time to reflect deeply on my life’s goals and where I am right now. It is an ideal opportunity to break free from a routine lifestyle. I feel very much relaxed during my travel and enjoy seeing new scenes and landscapes. It gives me time to discover more about myself. For example, when I was in Los Angeles, I saw a rock music performance at a club where everyone danced. I had not danced earlier at clubs. But when I joined the fun, I was surprised to realize that I enjoyed the experience a lot.

Travel also gives me a sense of being free and independent. It makes my mind open to new experiences all the time. Even during a flight, I get to taste new food, hear a new language, see new ways of dressing and listen to new kinds of music. This is very exciting and I thoroughly enjoy my life during these moments.

Through my travels, I have made many new international friends. Conversing with them has helped me understand their cultures better and I also have opportunities of improving my English which is now very important when travelling in UK and US. Moreover, as I intend to study in United States, it is good to improve my language skills before I begin my studies. Travelling to the United States has also helped me absorb their local culture and understand the value of hard work.

Above all, whenever I return to Romania after my travels, it helps me appreciate my home country a lot. I value Romanian culture and the warm way in which people relate to each other. I can appreciate it all the more when I travel abroad. Thus, my passion for travel while giving me fun, dreams and confidence, has also educated me, helped me embrace new cultures and new communication skills, adopt a more global perspective, improve my English and given me lots of good friends and wonderful memories. It has made me a richer person internally.

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 24). Travel: Personal Experience. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/

"Travel: Personal Experience." IvyPanda , 24 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Travel: Personal Experience'. 24 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Travel: Personal Experience." November 24, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

1. IvyPanda . "Travel: Personal Experience." November 24, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Travel: Personal Experience." November 24, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/travels-personal-experience/.

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Essays About Traveling: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Discover our guide with essays about traveling, including topic prompts that will make you write about traveling and hit the road for your next adventure. 

Traveling is a much-loved activity by many; exploring the world and seeing new and beautiful places can be a great way to unwind and recharge. Many fond memories are created during holidays abroad, and we carry these precious times with us. But for those who only travel for official business purposes and never really get to explore destinations fully, travel can be a more stressful experience. 

Beyond the anxieties one endures in planning a travel or boarding flights, traveling can do wonders for mental health, open our eyes to new experiences, help us be closer to nature, and allows us to reflect on our progress and accomplishments in life.

5 Essay Examples 

1. rebooting the economy: restoring travel and tourism in the covid-19 era by patrick l. osewe, 2.  humans may dream of traveling to mars, but our bodies aren’t built for it by charles wohlforth and amanda hendrix, 3. what’s sustainable about soaring private jet use by terry slavin, 4. instagram travel bragging is killing the family vacation by meagan francis, 5.  pre-travel stress by sally black, 1. travel bucket list, 2. your first solo travel , 3. travel to ghost towns, 4. how technology transformed travel, 5. how movies influence our travel preference, 6. learning cultures from traveling, 7. earn from travel vlogging, 8. traveling through time, 9. your most memorable travel experience, 10. benefits of traveling while working .

“Even as travel restrictions and lockdowns have relaxed, cautious return-to-travel behavior among travelers—due in part to lingering health and safety concerns—suggests that the recovery process for the industry will be long and slow.”

The travel industry was one of the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. With its importance to the economy, especially in Asia, where the industry could easily account for 80% of the GDP, a fast recovery is imperative. To make this goal more attainable, multisectoral coordination in planning and implementing safety rules will be essential. You might also be interested in these essays about holidays with family and essays about journeys .

“Even a short, sortie mission to Mars and back would be extremely hazardous to human health. A Mars colony is out of the question. Living long-term on its surface is beyond the capacity of our bodies to survive.”

Amid the excitement over sending humans to travel to Mars, there has been emerging research that highlights the dangers of such missions. The space between the Earth and Mars already poses many obstacles. And even if, by rare luck, man reaches Mars, staying will be the next paramount challenge as consequences could mean a halt in blood circulation or blindness. 

“When it comes to the carbon footprint of travel, there is nothing worse than traveling by private jet… Yet despite all the net-zero rhetoric from the corporate sector, and pressure from the flight-shame movement, private jet use is booming.”

As private jet use is starting to burgeon, society is demanding greater accountability from the ultra-rich and the commitment to invest in sustainable technologies for air travel. This could compensate for their use of private jets, a single one of which is estimated to ​​be several times more polluting than commercial planes.

“What, I wonder, does the financial strain of planning a trip you can’t really afford do to your expectation level — and how much can you enjoy your vacation once there? When the bill arrives, do most find that the experience was worth the stress after all?”

The culture of bragging on Instagram is destroying the true meaning of family vacations. Where such experiences used to be for relaxation, fun, and strengthening of family bonds, family travels are now a ticket for boasting, requiring ridiculous expenses for which some families are willing to be in debt. 

“While a vacation maybe me one of the highlights of your entire year, the days leading up to departure can be stressful. For some people, this stress can bubble over into a full-blown anxiety or panic attack complete with physical symptoms.”

Pre-travel stress is a common symptom for many. Worries often stem from hoping for the vacation to be smooth sailing. However, unpleasant incidents may always occur. On our part, we must focus on those we have control of, such as how we pack and how we address our ultimate pre-travel concerns.

10 Topic Prompts To Help With Your essays about traveling

How far have you progressed in completing your travel bucket list? Take this essay to share your experiences in traveling to your dream destinations. If you haven’t started ticking anything from your travel bucket list, you can simply enumerate these places and explain what drove your attraction. For example, you may visit Italy for tasty authentic Italian food and drink.

If you’ve traveled solo, this is the essay prompt for you. Turn this essay into a guide for helping people travel solo. So, provide tips on planning a solo trip and making the proper arrangements. Share the places you’ve gone to and travel hacks that helped ensure your safety, especially as safety is a chief concern when traveling solo. Finally, don’t forget to write down what made you bold enough to try a solo flight and how it has benefitted you.

For seekers of thrilling adventures, ghost towns are the best place to travel. First, find a ghost city that allows tourists. Then take on a story-telling essay by narrating the town’s story from its birth to its abandonment. Finally, ensure to provide your readers with a list of what they must do to enter the ghost town’s premises.

Efficiency and convenience in travel are the best gifts technology has given modern generations. Gone were the days when you still had to scout for a hotel upon arriving at your destination. For this writing prompt, compare today’s travel experience with the days before the computer. You may extend your essay by adding what more digital advancements the tourism industry has in store for travel lovers.

Almost always, the setting of a favorite movie becomes a part of your travel bucket list. This desire stems from the longing to connect with your favorite characters and mentally relive your favorite movie scenes, this time with yourself in the picture. For your essay, write about film-induced tourism becoming a key strategy for marketing travel destinations. 

Traveling is the best way to immerse in cultures and better understand the many worlds beyond your own. Share your experience traveling has helped open your mind to new cultures, practices, languages, and beliefs. To help your readers appreciate your trip, write a few paragraphs about the place, starting from its main point of attraction and its economic and socio-cultural statures. You can also interview other travel enthusiasts for this cultural essay. 

Travel vlogging is one of the best ways to earn money while having the best time. First, give a short overview of the travel vlog industry to entice your readers into travel vlogging. Next, gather reports that inform how one can generate money from this venture and how much they can expect in time with quality content. Then, provide a list of recommendations. You can use tips from other successful travel vloggers as well. 

Movies that tinker with time travel machines always appeal to many of us. This is certainly true for those thrilled over the possibility of visiting an era we can only imagine through our history books. If you were to time-travel, what historical period would you like to visit? Reveal this in your essay and explain why.

Share the most memorable travel experience with your readers and help them picture it with adjectives and vivid detailing. Your story doesn’t have to be a luxurious experience. It can be as simple as a scenic drive around the lake, a tan from a sunny beach, or your first travel by plane or boat.

Looking for more? Check out our guide on how to write a postcard .

The COVID-19 pandemic has made us realize that work can be done from a distance, pushing the telecommuting trends higher and fulfilling people’s travel vengeance. This essay cites the physical and mental health benefits of traveling while working. Share your opinion on whether companies should incentivize arrangements that allow work while traveling.  For more help with your writing, read our guide explaining persuasive writing . If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Essay on Travel Experience [200, 500 Words] With PDF

Travelling plays an important role in our lives as it enriches our experience. In this lesson, you will learn to write essays in three different sets on the importance of libraries. It will help you in articulating your thoughts in the upcoming exams.

Table of Contents

Essay on travel experience in 200 words, essay on travel experience in 500 words.

We travel to get away from the monotony of our daily lives. It’s a refreshing diversion from the monotony of everyday life. It allows our minds to relax and gives our inner child the opportunity to play. Some trip memories are nostalgic and melancholy, while others are daring and exhilarating. A trip to the graveyard, the poet’s corner in London, or one’s ancestral house, for example, is a voyage to nostalgia.

These travels allow them to relive memories and treasure golden memories from a bygone era. People who go on these journeys are frequently depressed and artistically inclined. Travelling instils a sense of adventure and encourages us to make the most of every opportunity. Some people prefer to travel in groups, whereas others prefer to travel alone.

Trips to amusement parks with massive roller coasters or a deeply wooded forest could be exciting. It’s important to remember that Columbus discovered America due to his travels. The journey becomes much more memorable when things don’t go as planned. For example, if a car tyre blows out on the highway and it begins to rain heavily, the trip will turn into an adventure, even though it was not intended to be such. A visit to a museum or a gothic structure, on the other hand, is sure to be exciting.

We travel to get a break from the mundane and robust lifestyle. It is a welcome change from the monotonous routine existence. It helps our minds rest and gives the inner child within us to have a good time.

Not all travelling experiences are adventurous and exciting, and some are nostalgic and melancholic. For instance, a trip to the cemetery or the poet’s corner in London or one’s ancestral home will be a nostalgia trip. Such trips help them re-live the moments and cherish the golden memories of bygone times. People who undertake such trips are often melancholic and have an artistic sensibility.

Travelling experiences bring enthusiasm and teach us to make the best of every moment. While some enjoy travelling in groups, some people love to travel solo. Adventurous trips could be to amusement parks with giant roller coasters or a deep, dense forest. One must not forget that travelling led Columbus to discover America. When things don’t go as planned, the trip becomes more memorable. For instance, if the car tyre gets punctured on the highway and starts raining heavily, the trip, even if not intended to be adventurous, shall become one. A trip to a museum or gothic architecture shall be thrilling. 

Last Christmas, my trip to Goa with my friends was an enriching one. The golden sun-soaked beaches offered a refuge from the humdrum city life of Kolkata. The cool breeze, the rising and setting sun, and the chilly wind all transported me to heaven. It was paradisal and divine. The cuisine was exquisite. The Portuguese culture and the museums offer various historical insights.

Although it was the peak season and most crowded places, people were civilised and cultured. The melodious music was in the air in every nook and corner, and the happy vibes were contagious. I danced, sang, played and had a great time. I tried sky diving, and it was a thrilling experience.

Besides fun and frolic, I found the independent spirit of people commendable. We spent three days in North Goa and two days in South Goa. We stayed at a guest house as most hotels were expensive and very occupied. We booked scooters to travel far and near. We also went on the cruise for the casino night.

My favourite spot was Thalassa, where we enjoyed the spectacular belly dance performance by males and females. We spent Christmas at Curlies witnessing the waxing moon at midnight. The lap of nature enriches one travelling experience and soothes their soul. The chirping of birds, the sound of the waterfall, the waves of a beach or the snow-covered mountain uplifts the traveller’s spirit.

One must not restrict oneself to a specific type of travelling experience. Life, after all, is a long journey that offers us different durations of vacations to make us laugh and learn at the same time. As Francis Bacon puts it, “Travel in the younger sort is a part of education, in the elder, a part of the experience.”

Hopefully, after going through this lesson, you have a holistic idea of the importance of travelling in our lives. I have tried to cover every aspect of a traveller’s experience within limited words. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. To read more such essays on many important topics, keep browsing our website. 

Join us on Telegram to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you, see you again soon.

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TravelAwaits

Our mission is to serve the 50+ traveler who's ready to cross a few items off their bucket list.

My 15 Favorite Travel Experiences Everyone Should Try Once

• Bucket List Trips
• Types of Travel

Travel opens you up to so many incredible experiences, and while there’s a whole lot more of the world I’d still like to see, and this is certainly not the definitive list of best travel experiences, I’d like to share with you some of my most amazing experiences and those I think deserve a spot on every traveler’s bucket list. 

1. Watch The Sunrise In A Really Special Place

One of my most memorable sunrises was on Mequfi Beach at the end of a trip through the Quirimbas Archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the north-eastern coast of Mozambique. My husband and I had traveled the 68 miles of the archipelago by plane, sailboat, traditional dhow (wooden boat), and helicopter. We’d spent 2 weeks on the journey and Diamonds Mequfi Beach Resort was the final stop on our itinerary. Keen to savor our last few hours of beach time before flying home, we were up early and down on the beach just as the sun’s first rays of light started to peek over the horizon.

2. Do Something That Terrifies You

After it takes a 360-foot tumble over Victoria Falls , the Zambezi River squeezes through a narrow gorge where it boils up into the biggest, and arguably best, white water rapids in the world. This is not for the faint-hearted, and an average level of fitness is required, but if you are feeling brave this really can be an adventure of a lifetime. I have done this trip numerous times and it’s definitely something I would recommend.

Pro Tip: The best time to raft the Zambezi is when the water levels are lower and more rapids are accessible, from August to mid-October. Go with a good operator like Bundu Adventures .

3. Laugh When You Get Caught In A Well-Known Tourist Scam!

Rome is an expensive city. Even a double room in a moderately priced hotel can be pricy. Traveling to Rome as a family with small children, we found the best value accommodation was one of the many convents that take in paying guests. Traveling on a budget and trying to economize wherever we could, we caught the train from the airport into the city. With our luggage and two small children in tow (one in a pushchair), we made the classic rookie mistake – we asked a local taxi driver how much he would charge to drive us to the convent. He named an exorbitant price. Some haggling ensued. Beating him down to a price that wasn’t quite so eye-watering, we climbed into the taxi. He drove for minutes, and around the corner pulled up outside our destination! An expensive lesson learned. All we could do was laugh!

4. Climb A Mountain

Climbing mountains is something I have been doing for years. I’ve climbed them, guided them, and taken my husband and my children up them. I’ve also taken clients on trips they tell me have been life-changing experiences.

If you are looking for an achievable, yet challenging, mountain to climb, let me steer you towards Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro , where I have been guiding regularly for years. Whether you’ll rate a climb up Africa’s highest mountain a great “travel experience” depends entirely on when you’re asked! Ask a climber making the final push to the summit and they’ll probably say no! At that moment it’s a tough, cold, nauseating, exhausting hell. But ask them 6 hours later, when they’re grinning from ear to ear, standing on the roof of Africa, and their answer will definitely be different.

5. Fly First Class

I’d love to say I have flown in first class, but that wouldn’t quite be true! Years ago, traveling from South Africa to Australia , I got as close to flying first class as I am probably ever going to get. Our travel agent made a mistake with our booking. When the plane touched down in Perth en route to Sydney , my husband and I got off with all the other passengers for a short layover before reboarding. We were surprised to see our boarding passes had us in new seats. In first class! We said nothing, grabbed a glass of champagne from the hostess, and sat down. The hostess, surprised to see us, asked to see our boarding passes. And that’s when the mistake was noticed. We were on the wrong plane; our travel agent had accidentally booked us on a later flight to Sydney! We were allowed to finish our champagne , and then quickly ushered to a pair of empty seats back in economy. Our time in first class was lovely while it lasted!

6. Take An Epic Road Trip, On A Road Less Traveled

The 800-mile, 8-day drive from Kathmandu in Nepal to Lhasa in Tibet , along the China-Nepal Friendship Highway is a seriously memorable road trip. It takes you past the highest peaks of the Himalayas, pristine alpine lakes, incredible Buddhist monasteries, and surreal landscapes.

Pro Tip: The China-Nepal Friendship Highway closed after the 2015 Nepal earthquake, and is now only open for goods transport. The route currently being used is along the Pasang Lhamu Highway, a rough route only advised for very intrepid travelers.

7. Spend Time With The Locals

I traveled with Indian friends to Kodenchery in southern India , where they were taking part in a white water kayaking competition. Not knowing the front end of a kayak from the back, I wasn’t actually taking part in the competition but was somehow persuaded to take on the role of commentator. Kodenchery is not on even the most adventurous traveler’s paths, and I was quite a novelty standing on the river bank, microphone in hand, doing my best to describe the action taking place in the river below. I learned a handful of useful phrases from friendly locals and when I was at a total loss for words, one of the local teachers stepped in as my translator. I somehow made it into the local newspaper and onto the local TV news! I’ve never forgotten my weekend of celebrity in the backwaters of south India.

8. Sleep In A Tent

I’ve slept in many tents in my time, and have many fond memories. My husband, on the other hand, is not a keen camper, only sleeping in a tent when absolutely necessary. Of all the tent experiences I have subjected him to, he tells me the most memorable is waking up one morning in a tiny, ice-covered tent in Ethiopia ’s remote Bale Mountains on a trek through to find the endangered Ethiopian wolf. 

9. Sleep On A Boat 

My husband and I were traveling to Tanzania ’s Mahale Mountains National Park, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, to trek with chimpanzees. Most tourists coming to Mahale fly in by charter flight. We decided to travel by boat up the lake from Zambia , spending 3 nights on the MV Liemba , a WWI German gunboat that was converted into a passenger and cargo ferry. We’d managed to secure a “first-class cabin,” which consisted of a rickety bunk bed, a plastic garden chair, and a broken fan — I wouldn’t recommend the trip to any other than the most stoic of travelers. Most of the passengers didn’t have cabins, instead sleeping on the deck. The shared bathroom facilities left a lot to be desired – my husband caught typhoid on the journey home! 

You might not want to choose this boat, but find a boat that suits you, and spend a few nights aboard.

10. Eat Street Food

Street food comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors. My “sweetest” street food memory is piping hot, fresh jalebis in India. It was a chilly early morning and I was walking, with a friend, through the narrow back streets of a tiny town in the Indian Himalayas, when we came across a guy deep frying these delicious sweets at a makeshift stall on the side of the road. Jalebis are a distant cousin to the donut, with a flour batter, deep fried in circular shapes, and soaked in sugar syrup or honey – they are delicious.

11. Visit An Iconic Site And Appreciate Seeing It In Person

The Eiffel Tower , the leaning tower of Pisa , the Grand Canyon – there are so many iconic sites around the world that deserve a place on your travel list. For me, it’s the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Growing up in Sydney, I never appreciated “the bridge” and must have crossed it a thousand times in my youth, never giving it a second thought. What makes you appreciate it though is climbing to the top! Dressed in a camouflage climbing suit, you, and your trembling knees, climb 1,332 steps to reach the top (burning 504 calories on the way!). At the top, you are rewarded with astounding views over the city. The view is particularly magical at dawn, watching the bustling metropolis come to life far below.

Pro Tip: book your climb with Bridge Climb Sydney the climb will cost you around $128. 

12. Sip Cocktails In A Rooftop Bar With A View

There are a million places around the world to sip a cocktail from a rooftop bar with a view. My special place is the chic rooftop bar at Upendo House , in Stone Town, Zanzibar. It overlooks the azure ocean and the historic House of Wonders (built by the second Sultan of Zanzibar in 1883 with a door so wide he could enter the house riding on the back of an elephant!).

13. Swim In Infinity Pool With A View

Everyone loves an infinity pool . My most memorable is the pool at Africa Bush Camps, Bumi Hills , Zimbabwe, which hovers on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the vast and shimmering waters of Lake Kariba, the world’s largest man-made lake, below.

14. Visit Somewhere With A History So Deep You Will Never Truly Understand It

Lalibela in northern Ethiopia is a place where I’ve stood in awe at the history around me. Known for its distinctive subterranean churches, many of which are joined by tunnels carved out of rock during the 12th and 13th centuries, Lalibela is still a pilgrimage site for Coptic Christians today.

15. Take Local Transport 

My first encounter with public transport in India was taking a sleeper train from Delhi to Dehradun (the gateway to India’s famous hill stations). I was alone and had never been on an overnight train before, let alone one in a different country. I boarded the train just before midnight. Within minutes, my fellow passengers had taken me under their collective wings, finding my berth, teaching me how to fold down my bunk bed, and introducing me to their families. As the train pulled out of the station, in unison they opened their picnic containers full of home-cooked food and offered me all kinds of delicious treats. I’ve never felt so instantly and completely accepted by a bunch of total strangers.

Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, before moving to Africa at the age of 21, Sarah Kingdom is a mountain climber and guide, traveler, yoga teacher, trail runner, and mother of two. When she is not climbing or traveling she lives on a cattle ranch in central Zambia. She guides and runs trips regularly in India, Nepal, Tibet, Russia, and Ethiopia, taking climbers up Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro numerous times a year.

19 Inspiring Travel Experience Stories About Life-Changing Trips

Love inspiring travel experience stories ?

Then you’re in the right place!

Grab a snack and your favorite beverage and get ready to settle in, as you’re about to read some truly inspiring travel stories about life-changing trips.

In this roundup, some of my favorite bloggers share their best travel stories.

You’ll hear about travelers embarking on sacred pilgrimages, growing after a first solo female travel trip, deeply connecting with locals on the road, and getting out of their comfort zones in ways that completely alter the course of their life.

And if you’re looking for a unique travel experience, you’ll likely find it in the short stories about travel below.

Table of Contents

Free Travel Resources

But first…

Make sure to grab free access to my #BeyondTheGuidebook Travel Resource Library:

Want to take the hassle out of trip planning?

Enter your name + email below to subscribe and snag access to my FREE Ultimate Travel Planning Resource Library, full of trip planners, cheat sheets, packing lists, Google Map itineraries + more! //  Privacy Policy . 

Woohoo! You’re officially a member of the Jessie on a Journey community. 

Make sure to also connect with me  on Instagram ,  on YouTube , and  on Facebook  to start traveling #BeyondTheGuidebook.

I regularly share about solo female travel, New York City, lesser-known destinations, unique experiences, active adventures, and how to turn your passion for exploring the world into a profitable business through travel blogging.

Click here to head back to the travel blog .

There is so much included!

Plus, I’m constantly adding new resources, guides, and personality quizzes to help you travel beyond the guidebook!

On that note, let’s dive into the inspiring travel stories .

1. Travel Experience Stories In South America

My travel story takes place in South America, back when I used to travel solo for months at a time.

I was in my mid-20s, and even though I’d backpacked Europe, Southeast Asia, and China and had studied abroad in Australia, the mix of intense excitement and nerves I had leading up to my South America backpacking trip was different.

And despite family and friends warning me that South America wasn’t a place for a solo female traveler , it ended up being my best trip ever.

There are so many interesting short travel stories and unforgettable travel experiences woven into this trip, like:

• Getting invited to have dinner with my Brazilian plane seatmate and her grandma
• Having a group of complete strangers on Couchsurfing take me out for dinner and dancing on my birthday in Mendoza
• Attending a small house party in Argentina and learning about the tradition of mate
• Getting stuck on a broken-down bus and having an impromptu language exchange with an elderly woman in Peru
• Having a love interest back home break up with me via text, and then experiencing the kindness of strangers as a woman in my hostel who I barely knew treated me to ice cream to cheer me up
• Having a romance with a hostel mate in Ecuador and then traveling through the country together
• Living in a giant treehouse with a group of strangers during a solo trip in Brazil and spending our days exploring hiking trails and swimming and our nights drinking and exchanging stories about traveling
• Taking a 4×4 from Chile to Bolivia across the Siloli Desert to see otherwordly sites like rainbow lagoons and train graveyards in the middle of nowhere
• Experiencing some of the world’s most incredible natural wonders, like Iguazu Falls, Torres del Paine, the Amazon River, Uyuni Salt Flats, and Perito Moreno Glacier

At times the trip was also challenging, from dealing with long bus rides and car sickness to flipping over my bicycle handlebars in Peru and getting my body (and ego) badly bruised.

But, I was okay.

In fact, I was more than okay, as the trip showed me how independent I could be and what I was truly capable of. It also showed me the beauty of immersing yourself in cultures different than your own and connecting with locals who want to share them with you.

Years later, when people ask what my best travel experience has been this is the trip that comes to mind.

-Jessie from Jessie on a Journey

2. Traveling With An Open Mind

Many people think of travel as an experience and rightly so. Sometimes, however, you cannot choose the places you travel to.

This happened to me in 2019.

My husband found himself posted in Brunei for work.

Three months pregnant meant that I had a choice:

Either stay with him in Brunei for three months before returning back to India or remain in India, alone.

I chose the former. Not because of my love for the country but because I wanted to be close to him.

Brunei had never held any appeal to me. Whatever research that I pulled off the Internet showed me nothing other than one beautiful mosque.

The flights in and out of the country were expensive so traveling frequently out was not an option either.

I was engulfed by a sense of being trapped in a remote place.

Needless to say, I reached Brunei in a pretty foul mood. I think one of the things that struck me the most even in the midst of that bad mood was the large swaths of greenery that surrounded us.

Mind you, we were not staying in the big city but as far away on the outskirts as you could imagine. I’m not a city girl by any stretch and the greenery eventually soothed my nerves.

It took a week, but I soon found myself interacting with people around me. Fellow expats and locals all went out of their way to make me feel comfortable.

The more comfortable I felt, the more we explored. We trekked (yes, while pregnant!), we joined the board game community, and we enjoyed the local cuisine.

Three months later when it was time to leave, I found myself reluctant to say goodbye to the warmth of the country I had called home for a short while.

I think that my time in Brunei taught me a valuable lesson:

Don’t judge a place by what others say or a lack of information.

Sure, you may not always like what you see, but there will always be something that you will like. You just need to look hard enough to find it!

-Penny from GlobeTrove

3. From Half-Day Hiker To Walking Holiday Enthusiast

I’ve always enjoyed walking but never in a million years did I imagine I’d end up walking over 200 kilometers (~124 miles) in 10 days, become a fan of walking holidays, and end up developing self-guided hiking routes in Portugal with a local tour operator as part of my business.

The shift from being someone who was content with an easy three-hour walk to an experienced multi-day hiker began with a brief taste of the Portuguese Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrim trail through Portugal to Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Spain.

Back in 2013 I did a guided one-day hike along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Camino, north of Ponte de Lima. It’s also one of the most challenging sections so it was hard work, but the views from the top of Labruja Mountain made the climb worthwhile.

My guides were so enthusiastic about the thrill of arriving at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral after the challenges of day after day on the Camino that I began to think I might want to give it a go, despite not being religious.

Fast forward a few years and I set off from Barcelos with a friend of mine to follow the Portuguese Camino de Santiago.

Apart from suffering from chronic back pain, I thought I was quite fit but nothing had prepared me for how utterly exhausted I would feel at the end of each walking day.

This was truly a slow travel experience, as we were averaging about 20 kilometers (~12 miles) per day and by the time we reached our hotel, I would barely have enough energy to get cleaned up and find food before collapsing. I had envisioned plenty of sightseeing but that ended up being minimal.

Quickly, I realized the moral of this unique travel experience:

The Camino was all about making the most of the journey rather than the destination.

For me, that was quite a shift in thinking as I am usually all about getting to where I want to be as soon as possible so that I can start exploring. It was, perhaps, also my first step on the path towards mindfulness.

I will never forget the sense of achievement and progress at the end of each walking day, and the relief and pride I felt when we finally made it to Santiago de Compostela.

We met people who had walked the Camino several times and I can totally understand how it can become addictive. 

-Julie from Julie Dawn Fox in Portugal

4. A Story About Traveling & Its Ripple Effect

Tucked away in far eastern Indonesia is a tiny archipelago of islands called the Banda Islands.

Apart from world-class snorkeling and some crumbling colonial buildings, the Banda Islands are mostly forgotten and would be described as a backwater by all accounts.

However, the Banda Islands are possibly the main reason that I am who I am today. 

Well, the Bandas are the original Spice Islands.

Nutmeg used to grow on this tiny group of islands alone and nowhere else. The Dutch colonized Indonesia and promptly became the owners of islands where money grew on trees.

The only problem was that Indonesia was so far away that they needed a halfway stop to and from Indonesia.

That’s where my travel experience story comes in.

The same Dutch East India Company that traded in spice set up a halfway station at the foot of Table Mountain to break up their long journey. As a result, my Dutch ancestors arrived in the southernmost point in Africa , and generations later we are still there.

When I visited the Banda Islands, it dawned on me how something happening on the other side of the world can ripple out and affect people on the other side of the planet.

And I’m not the only one!

The spice trade was so important to the Dutch that they even traded a tiny island in the Banda archipelago for a much bigger island…Manhattan.

Yes. That Manhattan.

Before visiting the Banda Islands I never really knew about this part of my history.

Along with the spice that the ships carried back to Amsterdam, it also carried slaves. These slaves, more often than not, ended up in Cape Town.

Just like my European ancestors, they too became a part of Africa and added another shade to our beautiful Rainbow Nation.

It was in the Banda Islands that I realized how much of my culture, food, stories and even words in my mother tongue, Afrikaans, actually originated in Indonesia.

Because of these tiny islands, I am a true mix of Europe, Africa, and Asia. While I always thought I knew how all things in life are somehow connected, I didn’t really grasp it until my visit to Indonesia.

This could have been a resort travel experience story, as I went to Indonesia to swim and snorkel and relax on the world’s best beaches. And while I did get to do that, I also learned a lot about who I am as a person, my people, and my country…on another continent. 

My visit to the Bandas has sparked a fascination with Indonesia, which I have visited seven times since. I’m already planning another trip to this spectacular country!

-De Wet from Museum of Wander

5. Awakening My Spirit In A Costa Rican Cloud Forest

In February 2017, I was just coming out of a decade of mysterious chronic illness that had shrunk my world.

And one of the things that finally helped me to resurface during the previous year was an online Qi Gong course I stumbled upon: 

Flowing Zen .

To the casual observer, Qi Gong looks a lot like its better-known cousin, Tai Chi — the ancient art of moving meditation — but it’s actually energy medicine for healing.

In fact, it’s commonly used in Chinese hospitals.

My daily practice that year made such a difference for me that I dangled a reward for myself:

If I stuck with it all year, then I’d head to Sifu Anthony’s annual retreat in a cloud forest in Costa Rica the following February.

And I did! It was my first trip out of the country for more than a decade.

Just like that, I booked a solo trip — something I hadn’t done since I was an exchange student to Europe 30 years earlier — to San Jose where I met up with a dozen strangers and Sifu Anthony, our Qi Gong master.

We boarded a tiny bus and rode up, up, up around carsick-inducing curvy mountain roads into a magical cloud forest jungle where we finally arrived at The Blue Mountain (“La Montana Azul”) for a weeklong Qi Gong retreat. 

There were no Internet or distractions here — just delicious organic vegetarian meals made with love and shared with the community under a gorgeous open-air palapa.

There were also colorful tropical birds singing in the jungle, as well as the largest arachnid I’ve ever seen in my gorgeous (but also roofless) room for a little extra adventure.

I’d felt a little energy movement during my year of online practice, but during that week on The Blue Mountain, my body began to really buzz with Qi — life force energy — as I Lifted the Sky, stood in Wuji Stance, and practiced Shooting Arrows.

I felt electrified and joyful. 

And that was when everything changed for me.

At home, I had a successful career as a freelance writer, but I decided during my week in the cloud forest that I wanted more from life.

I wanted to explore the beauty, diversity, nature, and culture in every corner of the world.

And I wanted to share this intoxicating joyful feeling of life-giving freedom and adventure with anyone who wanted to come along for the ride.

Shortly after that, at age 53, I launched my travel blog.

Dreams really do come true. They are just waiting for you to claim them.

-Chris from Explore Now or Never

Enter your name + email below to subscribe and snag access to my FREE Ultimate Travel Planning Resource Library, full of trip planners, cheat sheets, packing lists, personality quizzes, travel guides, Google Map itineraries + more! //  Privacy Policy . 

6. From Rome With Love

This wasn’t the way I wanted to see Rome. 

Sure, I was happy to spend Christmas in Rome and stand in awe of the city’s many iconic attractions. But, life wasn’t meant to turn out like this.

I was supposed to go to Rome with my mom back in 2012; however, life had different plans, because a week before our trip, I got a double kidney infection. A condition that required a week of hospitalization.

Although I was annoyed I had missed my trip, it wasn’t the end of the world since I was fine and everything seemed okay…until my mom developed a cough.

A cough that later became a heartbreaking diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer. 

My mom spent the final months of her life in chemo, desperately trying to fight a horrific disease so that she wouldn’t let her family down.

And she didn’t.

Instead, she showed us how to never give up on life, even if it was a losing battle. 

So, when she eventually passed away, I booked a trip to Rome. 

Sure, it wasn’t the trip I had hoped for. But, I knew that as her daughter, it was my job to live enough for the both of us. 

And that’s exactly what I did.

Was I an anxious, sad, angry mess of a person?

Absolutely. I was still getting used to a world that my mother wasn’t a part of. 

And honestly, you never get used to that world. You just deal with it because you don’t really have a choice.

But I also knew that I wanted my mom to live on through me and that I didn’t want to live a life where the haunting phrases “should of,” “could of,” and “would have” swirled through my head and ate away at my happiness.

So, I went. I packed a boatload of tissues, sobbed my heart out, and attended Christmas mass at the Vatican. 

I also threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, walked through the Colosseum, chowed down on gelato, and spent two weeks doing all the things my mom and I had wanted to do. 

And that’s when it hit me. I had never gone to Rome alone because my mom had always been there with me. Maybe she wasn’t physically there, but I thought of her and felt her presence every minute of every day. 

Her presence also reminded me that life isn’t about the things we buy or the money that we have.

It’s about making memories with the people we love; people that never really leave us since they are constantly influencing our lives in countless ways.

And after my trip to Rome, I finally knew that my mom would always be there because she had forever changed my life in the best possible way. 

-Kelly from Girl with the Passport

7. Studying In Finland

One of my major life-turning points happened during my exchange studies in Finland.

Until then, I was studying at a university in Prague, had a part-time job at a renowned management-consulting firm, and thought I was on the right path in life.

At the University of Economics where I studied it was notoriously difficult to get on an Erasmus exchange trip abroad since the demand was huge. Everyone wanted to go!

Regardless, I decided to sign up early for my last semester, just to see what the process was like to be better prepared for applying again in a year.

I did make it through all the three rounds and surprisingly got a spot at a University in Turku, Finland! I was ecstatic. The success brought its own challenges, but once you set your eyes on the goal, nothing can stop you.

And I had the time of my life in Finland.

I met the most amazing people, traveled a ton, partied a lot, and bonded with friends from all over the world.

Given I was one of the few people there who really needed to pass all her courses and additionally write her thesis, I managed to run on an impossible sleep schedule of four hours per night. But I made it!

My studies in Finland opened up my horizons, too.

The summer after, I wrapped up my life in Prague and went on to study in Germany and China . The whole time I traveled as much as possible, often going on solo adventures. It was only a matter of time when I’d start my own travel blog.

My Finland adventure led me to a life of freedom made up of remote work, travel blogging , and plenty of traveling. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. And it gave me one of my favorite true adventure stories that I can now share with others.

-Veronika from Travel Geekery

8. How Cuba Changed My Life

One of my favorite inspiring stories about travel takes place in Cuba.

I visited Cuba in February 2013 and it changed my life — and I like to think it did so for the better.

Interestingly, I expected a completely different country and was compelled to write about it when I got back home.

But let me tell you more.

I read copious amounts of blogs and travel diaries to prepare myself for the trip to Cuba so I thought I’d go in with a fairly good idea of what to expect. Each and every post I read spoke of marvelous landscapes, pristine beaches, crumbling but charming cities, and welcoming locals.

All of it was true, in my experience — except for the locals.

I didn’t find them so welcoming. At least, not genuinely so. They only seemed to welcome me as far as they could get something in exchange: money, clothes, pens, soap, you name it. 

Each and every day in Cuba was a challenge to avoid the scams, to avoid being ripped off, to fight off each and every attempt of people trying to take advantage of me. I usually managed, but it was exhausting and it left a sour taste in my mouth.

Once I got back home I felt the urge to write about my experience — not for other sites or papers as I’d often do. This time I was afraid I’d be censored.

So I opened my own blog. With zero tech knowledge, zero understanding of online content creation and SEO, I started writing and telling people what they should really expect during a trip to Cuba.

I’d put up the occasional post, but continued with my usual job.

At the end of the year, my contract as a researcher in international human rights law at the local university ended, and I decided to stop pursuing that career for a while.

I packed my bags and left for a long-term trip to Central and South America . I started writing on the blog more consistently and learning, and eventually took my blog full-time , turning it into a career.

As of today, I have never looked back and have no regrets.

The one thing I’ll do, as soon as I can, is travel to Cuba to say thank you — because it changed my life in a way nothing else has ever done. 

-Claudia from Strictly Sardinia

9. A Short Travel Story About Finding Inner Peace In Patagonia

Life in London is hard.

Life in London as a gay single brown refugee is harder.

Juggling between work, my passion for traveling, and the prejudices that I dealt with on a daily basis eventually took their toll on me and I reached a breaking point.

The fact that I couldn’t return home to see my family and being away for them for almost nine years was enough to hammer in the final nail in the coffin.

I almost had a nervous breakdown and in that moment of desperation, which I knew would define the rest of my life, I took a month off and headed to Patagonia.

It was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. The 36 hours it took me to get to El Chalten from London were tiring but Patagonia blew me away.

On my first day there I did a 28-kilometer (17-mile) hike which included a steep mountain climb. It was incredible how moving through the forest helped me clear my mind. And as I stood in front of Laguna de Los Tres, the rain and clouds gave way to sunshine and a rainbow.

I felt at peace.

The countless hikes, great food, and the warmth of locals in Chile and Argentina helped me get back in my skin and find the peace I was missing in my heart.

Nature is indeed the best medicine when it comes to stress relief and I won’t be coy about hugging trees to speed up the process (it did).

Patagonia was life-changing for me.

The beauty of nature struck me at each point and every time I thought it wasn’t possible to beat the view, the next one did just that.

I came back a changed, resilient, and most importantly, a happy person.

-Ucman from BrownBoyTravels

10. Looking Inwards & Making Connections With Strangers

It was decades before I traveled solo for the first time in my life.

This trip — a six-day escape to Colorado — was the first trip that was not for business or family reasons but just to travel and discover.

As I prepared for it, I had a strange feeling of excitement and nerves at the same time. I had all sorts of thoughts and doubts:

Would it be fun?

Would I be bored?

Would I stay in bed all day or would I bounce with excitement to do the next thing?

I wasn’t sure. Little did I know that it was going to be a memorable journey of self-discovery. 

As a good wife and mom, for me travel is always about the family; always thinking of who would enjoy what. It’s about family time and bonding. It’s about creating memories and travel stories together. It’s all so wonderful.

But on a solo trip who would I connect with? What would I say?

Well, I found that I got to do anything I wanted!

Usually when I travel with my family, if I feel like going on a drive that’s not on the itinerary or getting a snack no one else is interested in, we simply don’t do that.

So it was weird to just go do it. Really, that’s a thing?

As for making connections, it was so easy to meet locals while traveling and also to connect with other travelers. Honestly, I had conversations everywhere — on planes, while hiking, in restaurants, in the hotel lobby.

It was quite an eye-opening experience to meet a mom of 18 kids and hundreds of foster kids, a cookie baker, a professional photographer, a family of Fourteener hikers, and an internationally ranked marathon runner.

The inspiring stories I discovered were amazing and nothing like my wonderful safe life at home. 

In terms of travel safety , I got to go rock climbing, solo hiking, driving up a Fourteener, eating alone.

And it was all fine. Actually, it felt surprisingly normal.

It was was just me, my SUV, and my backpack for a week. Most of all, it was a breath of fresh air that I didn’t know existed. 

It’s wonderful to be back home and know that possibilities are endless and there is so much more out there to explore and be wowed by!

-Jyoti from Story At Every Corner

11. A Solo Hike To Find Connection

I have traveled solo many times, but I admit I was a bit uneasy booking my trip to Colombia . In part, due to the country’s dark past. But also because I desperately wanted to do the Cocora Valley hike, and if I’m honest, I was terrified.

This hike is located in the Coffee Triangle, an area recognized for its beauty as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It features both rainforest and a stunning green valley speckled with cartoonishly-tall wax palms rising 200 feet or more.

It’s incredibly beautiful.

It’s also a long hike and quite challenging — it generally takes between six and eight hours and there is a steep area with over 3,000 feet of elevation within a quarter of a mile.

I wasn’t in hiking shape, so I was a little concerned. But, worst of all for me were the seven dodgy-looking suspension bridges. 

I’m terrified of heights.

And, I’d be going alone.

I decided to go anyway and I met an incredible woman on the bus to Salento, the town near Cocora. She was also traveling solo and we agreed to hike together.

The town is a backpacker enclave and we met up with a small group of people all traveling solo. As the days passed, our group got larger and it was such a magical experience.

As much as I love city travel, this small town won my heart.

My new friend and I set off on the hike and met two other women who were nervous to do the hike. We all went together.

When we got to the first suspension bridge, I paused. I was embarrassed to admit my fear, but the bridge swayed widely and there was nowhere to hold onto.

When they realized how out of my comfort zone I was and how scared I felt, everything changed. Instead of me dealing with it alone, they were all there to encourage me.

One crossed the bridge to encourage me from the other side and they stayed off of it to limit the sway. Crazy enough, I not only crossed the seven suspension bridges, but I also crossed one an extra time when we went the wrong way on the trail.

I did it! 

I was prepared to be blown away by Cocora Valley’s beauty, but what I wasn’t expecting was what a life-changing travel experience my time there would be.

 -Sam from My Flying Leap

12. How A Pet Sitting Travel Experience Led To A Passionate Career

We wanted to go to the Caribbean but didn’t know much about the islands or how we were going to afford it.

By chance, a friend of ours in Australia mentioned “pet sitting” and that it is something you can do all over the world.

We quickly created an account on a pet sitting website and began searching for options. There were only a couple of sits available in that part of the world, but we tried our luck, sent a request, and to our surprise landed a three-month gig in a beautiful house in the US Virgin Islands — with an infinity pool overlooking the British Virgin Islands.

A month into our sit, we had explored the destination pretty well and so had a lot of time on our hands. We managed to secure another sit in Grenada, so our year was going to be taken up with Caribbean pet sits.

Inspired by a Canadian couple that had previously stayed at our Grenada housesit, we decided to start our own travel blog. We began by writing about The Virgin Islands, highlighting the beautiful beaches and funky bars.

But for every photo of a beautiful beach there were 10 photos of trash.     

It was hard to ignore the plastic pollution issue, especially on such pristine and remote beaches.  So, we began to share photos of the trash we saw and how much we could pick up on our daily dog walks.

The more we looked into plastic pollution, the more we realized the severity of the global plastic pandemic. From that point, we used our platform to create awareness and highlight ways to say no to plastic and travel plastic-free .

We changed our daily routines, our way of living, and even our diets to accommodate more organic foods and little to no plastic packaging.

It’s been over three years now and we continue to do what we can. This journey has led us to some amazing places, working with great conscious brands and even organizing a country-wide beach clean-up campaign in Grenada.

Our aim now is to keep on going.

We love connecting with like-minded people and love the shift over the last few years that brands have made towards creating more sustainable products and services.

It’s been an amazing few years that was sparked by a conversation about pet sitting. Who would have guessed?

-Aaron & Vivien from The Dharma Trails

13. Learning To Slow Down The Hard Way

On Christmas of 2017, I was born again.

We like to spend our Christmas holidays somewhere warm abroad, and that year we chose Uganda.

Nature, wildlife, and sunny days were a blessing when it was so cold and dark in Europe. Life was beautiful, and we had a rental car and a busy schedule ahead to explore the country.

This is where this short travel story turns into one of my more scary travel experiences :

At Murchinson Falls National Park, we had a car accident.

I lost control of the car, and it rolled over, destroying windows, chassis, and engine.

But we were alive! My right arm was severely injured, but we managed to walk to our lodge, not far inside the park.

In the lodge, I was happy to learn that there was a pretty decent American hospital in Masindi that was just a one-hour drive from the lodge. Moreover, one of the lodge’s guests was a nurse who cleaned the wound while we were waiting for the taxi from/to Masindi.

The hospital took care of us, and after a couple of injections and stitches, I was ready to head to our new hotel in Masindi; however, my wound required daily dressing and more injections, so we were asked to stay in town for a few days.   

Masindi is the kind of place where you may want to stop to buy some food or water, but that’s it.

The town’s highlights were the market and our daily visit to the hospital, so we ended up looking for the small things, chatting with the medical staff, the hotel staff, the people in the market, and learning more about their customs.

We learned to slow down the hard way.

When we were allowed to leave, we took a road trip south through the country to see something else. We did not care about our travel bucket list anymore — we were alive, and we wanted to enjoy Uganda’s unique nature and its people. 

In the end, our Uganda trip was not about the places that we saw, but the people that we met. It was travel for experience vs sightseeing.

I hope to revisit Uganda one day, with a stop at Masindi for some food, water, and maybe something else.

-Elisa from World in Paris

14. A Cycling Trip To Remember

During the summer of 2019, I cycled solo from London to Istanbul. This huge bicycle tour took me 89 days and through 11 countries.

As you might expect, it was a challenging yet incredible journey, which saw me pedal along some of Europe’s greatest rivers, pass through some of its best cities, and witness some of its most beautiful scenery.

It’s becoming more and more important for us to think about the impact that travel can have on our environment. This was the inspiration for my bicycle tour; I wanted to find more responsible ways to explore the world and avoid flights where possible.

I discovered that bicycle touring is one of the most eco-friendly ways to travel, as using nothing but a bicycle and your own pedal power you can carry everything you need while covering surprising distances each day.

The simplicity of life and the sheer amount of time I spent cycling alone gave me a lot of time to just think . This really helped me to come to terms with some personal problems rooted in my past and, as a result, I arrived solo in Istanbul with newly found confidence, independence, and liberation. 

Cycling across the entire European continent may seem like an impossibly daunting task, but I assure you, it will make you feel like a new person, just like it did for me.

-Lauren from The Planet Edit

15. How The Caribbean Shaped Me Into A Fully Sustainable Traveler

One of my first international trips as an adult was traveling around the Caribbean .

I checked into my hotel in Jamaica and asked for a recommendation for a local place to eat. The receptionist told me that under no circumstances should I should go into the town because it was really dangerous, but that — to my luck — the hotel’s restaurant offered wonderful Caribbean food.

I pondered my options:

Did I really want to spend all my time on the beach without getting to know a single local?

I was a very inexperienced traveler and very young, but there was only one answer to my question:

Absolutely not. I was not going to be visiting a new place and staying hostage in a hotel chain. So out I went.

The poverty hit me in the face. After only seeing fancy resorts, the reality was hard to swallow.

A few locals approached me and were super curious as to what I was doing there alone, since most tourists didn’t go there.

I told them I was interested in meeting them and experiencing their culture. And just like that, I was embraced.

We met more people, had some food, and then we danced the night away. They had so little, yet they wanted to share it with me. They wanted to make me feel welcome.

And they undeniably did.

The next morning all I could think about was how all the money most tourists spend goes to big corporations. The locals have to be thankful if they get a job that pays minimum wage, while foreign businesses earn millions.

I have always been environmentally conscious, but this trip made it clear that sustainability goes well beyond nature and wildlife.

It’s also about communities.

From then on I always look for locally owned accommodation, eateries, guides, and souvenirs.

Sustainability, with everything it entails, became a motto for me and changed the very essence of the way I travel.

-Coni from  Experiencing the Globe

16. Lessons From My Students In Peru

One of the most life-changing trips I’ve ever been on was a volunteering experience in the stunning city of Cuzco in Peru.

I spent a month there teaching English and Italian to a group of local adults. And even though my time there was short, the travel experience was so humbling that it changed my outlook on life.

My lessons took the form of active conversations, which essentially turned into a massive multilingual cultural exchange between me and my students. Hearing my students talk about their lives — and realizing just how different they were from mine — made me look at my own life with a fresh new perspective.

One person spoke about the three years he spent living in a jungle with his dad, where they fed off of animals they hunted in order to survive.

Another student told me about her ultimate dream of mastering English so that she could become a tour guide and have a more stable future.

For me, these stories were a reminder of just how small I am in this world and how much we can get consumed by the small bubbles we live in. 

Most of all, my students showed a passion and appreciation for life that I’d never witnessed before.

This is true for the locals I met in Cuzco in general. The quality of life in Cuzco is very modest; hot water is scarce and you learn to live with little.

But the locals there do way more than just that — they spontaneously parade the streets with trumpets and drums just because they’re feeling happy, and their energy for the simple things in life is incredibly contagious.

It was impossible to not feel inspired in Cuzco because my students always had the biggest smiles on their faces, and the locals showed me again and again that simply being alive is a blessing.

I went to Peru to teach, but ended up learning more from my students and the locals there than they did from me.

Ever since I got back from that trip, I made it a goal to slow down and not take the simple things in life for granted.

Every time I get upset about something, I think about the Peruvians in Cuzco parading their streets in song and pure joy, and I tell myself to stop complaining.

-Jiayi from  The Diary of a Nomad

17. Braving Travel With Chronic Pain

Santiago de Compostela is a beautiful city with a prominent cathedral positioned centrally within the city.

While the historical cathedral attracts numerous visitors, even more well-known is the route to Santiago de Compostela, Camino de Santiago –- the world-famous pilgrimage route that has a plethora of trailheads and ends in Santiago. 

Home to locals, students, English teachers, and those on a spiritual pilgrimage, personal conquest, or a great outdoor hiking excursion, Santiago is a magical city.

My introduction to Santiago de Compostela doesn’t begin on the pilgrimage route, yet ends with a spiritual awakening analogous with those other unique pilgrimage stories.

It was my first solo trip abroad teaching English in Spain, a country that’s always been on my travel bucket list. A small town outside of Santiago was selected as the school I’d be teaching at for the year.

Unknowingly, this teach abroad program chose the perfect city for me to live in. 

A year prior, I suffered a traumatic brain injury that left me unable to function normally and complete average tasks. Migraines, headaches, and dizziness became my body’s normal temperament, a hidden disability invisible to the naked eye. 

Braving travel with chronic pain was the first lesson I learned during the trip.

The vast green outdoors and fresh dew from the morning rain enlivened me daily and reminded me about the importance of slowing down so I could enjoy traveling with my hidden disability. 

I also learned to stop often for daily tea breaks and to embrace the long lunch hour,  siestas , with good food, company, and a nap to rest.

Meeting locals , indulging in local food, and learning Spanish allowed me to connect deeply with the beautiful culture of Santiago. After all, my dream was to travel to Spain, and I more than accomplished that dream.

Difficult or not, I learned to own my dream and I was more than surprised with the results.

Who knew that a year after my injury I’d be traveling the world with chronic pain, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

-Ciara from Wellness Travel Diaries

18. A Blessing In Disguise

2020 has been a wild year for all of us and foreign students in China are no exception. As soon as the malevolent virus began to make its rounds in China, our university sent us home for “two weeks.”

However, within a short time, countries began to shut their borders and these “two weeks” turned into months, a full year even.

Crushed by the burden of online lectures and virtual labs, my boyfriend and I packed our bags and caught one of the first flights to his home country of Pakistan.

I had always been an over-ambitious traveler. I believed numbers were everything — the number of countries I visited, the number of hours I spent on a plane, the number of international trips I took in a year. These numbers were what defined me.

My feet were constantly itching and I never liked to spend more than a few days in a place before heading to the next country. Revisiting a place felt superfluous to me.

That’s why I was hoping to spend a month or two in Pakistan and then continue to check new countries off the list — after all, my online classes finally granted me the freedom to “work on my numbers.”

But as is usually the case in 2020, things turned out quite different from what I had expected. Borders remained closed and worldwide infections stayed rampant. At this point, I have already spent nearly half a year in Pakistan.

During this peculiar time, however, an amazing thing happened:

My mindset about travel started to change and I began to look at my long stay in Pakistan as perhaps my most valuable travel experience ever.

I may not have visited dozens of countries like in previous years but my experiences were deeper than ever before.

From trekking to one of the world’s tallest mountains to sharing tea with heavily armed officers at nearly 5,000 meters altitude to exploring hidden beaches in the most secluded regions to spontaneously being invited to village homes, my adventures in Pakistan couldn’t have been more incredible. They opened my eyes to the sheer diversity of many countries and completely transformed my idea about traveling. 

It took me nearly a full year of heavy restrictions on international travel and a few months in one of the world’s most fascinating countries to give up on my superficial ideals and become a more mature traveler.

This time will always have a special place in my heart.

-Arabela from The Spicy Travel Girl

19. What The River Taught Me

My travel story takes place in the summer of 2017 — the final summer before I graduated university — as it continues to play a significant role in the person I’ve become.

When I say that, people ask me if it was the portion of the summer I spent solo backpacking in Europe . And to their surprise, it wasn’t. It was actually the latter portion of the summer where I stayed closer to home.

For July and August I worked as a canoe guide leading whitewater canoe trips on remote rivers in Canada. It was here that I got to canoe the powerful and iconic Missinaibi River, a river that continues to influence me all these years later.

The Missinaibi River flows from the powerful Lake Superior to the even more powerful salty waters of James Bay. Here, I led a group of eight teenagers through dozens of whitewater rapids over 500 kilometers (~311 miles).

With no cell service for 25 days, we were forced to disconnect from anything other than the river.

During this trip I learned two important lessons:

First, I learned to be confident in my own abilities as a leader and problem solver.

There were a few rapids where my campers’ boats flipped and I had to rescue the campers and the canoes. One rescue saw two boats flip on a mile-long rapid. It took six hours to make it down the rapid, and during this time I managed stuck canoes and crying campers.

And while this was one of the most difficult rescues I’ve done, I was amazed at how calm I was throughout it. I gave clear directions, prioritized effectively, and kept my campers safe throughout the entire experience. Following the rescue, I had a newfound sense of confidence in my abilities.

The second lesson I learned on the Missinaibi was the power of disconnecting from society and connecting with the people around you.

A wild river commands all of your attention. Each day, you and your group must take down camp, load canoes, paddle up to eight hours while navigating both rapids and portages, get to a new campsite, set up camp, cook dinner, and go to bed.

And without the distraction of technology, your attention has nowhere else to be. You focus on the river and your teammates.

As someone who had wrestled with anxiety and depression prior to this summer, I felt at total ease on the trip. Now I seek societal disconnection and human connection as much as I can. 

Sometimes the most profound, life-altering trips are the least expected trips closer to home.

-Mikaela of  Voyageur Tripper

More Short Travel Experience Stories

25 Crazy Travel Stories You Need To Read To Believe

23 Inspiring Travel Stories Sharing The Kindness Of Strangers

17 True Short Adventure Travel Stories To Inspire Your Next Trip

38 Inspiring Travel Love Stories From The Road

16 Short Funny Travel Stories That Will Make You Laugh

20 Embarrassing Travel Stories That Will Make You Laugh & Blush

21 Travel Horror Stories About Scary Travel Experiences

Do you have any inspiring travel experience stories about life-changing trips to share?

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These stories are so much fun to read! Thanks so much for putting a post like this together. It’s great to be able to check out other people’s blogs and read about other people’s experiences!

Always great to read about travel experiences of others. Some great stories to read over coffee. I’ve Pinned your post for future reference and to share with others. Will check out each story author’s blog as well. Great Job! 🙂

Amazing story for new traveler like me thanks for your contribution

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Essay On Travel

500 words essay on travel.

Travelling is an amazing way to learn a lot of things in life. A lot of people around the world travel every year to many places. Moreover, it is important to travel to humans. Some travel to learn more while some travel to take a break from their life. No matter the reason, travelling opens a big door for us to explore the world beyond our imagination and indulge in many things. Therefore, through this Essay on Travel, we will go through everything that makes travelling great.

Why Do We Travel?

There are a lot of reasons to travel. Some people travel for fun while some do it for education purposes. Similarly, others have business reasons to travel. In order to travel, one must first get an idea of their financial situation and then proceed.

Understanding your own reality helps people make good travel decisions. If people gave enough opportunities to travel, they set out on the journey. People going on educational tours get a first-hand experience of everything they’ve read in the text.

Similarly, people who travel for fun get to experience and indulge in refreshing things which may serve as a stress reducer in their lives. The culture, architecture, cuisine and more of the place can open our mind to new things.

The Benefits of Travelling

There are numerous benefits to travelling if we think about it. The first one being, we get to meet new people. When you meet new people, you get the opportunity to make new friends. It may be a fellow traveller or the local you asked for directions.

Moreover, new age technology has made it easier to keep in touch with them. Thus, it offers not only a great way to understand human nature but also explore new places with those friends to make your trip easy.

Similar to this benefit, travelling makes it easier to understand people. You will learn how other people eat, speak, live and more. When you get out of your comfort zone, you will become more sensitive towards other cultures and the people.

Another important factor which we learn when we travel is learning new skills. When you go to hilly areas, you will most likely trek and thus, trekking will be a new skill added to your list.

Similarly, scuba diving or more can also be learned while travelling. A very important thing which travelling teaches us is to enjoy nature. It helps us appreciate the true beauty of the earth .

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Travel

All in all, it is no less than a blessing to be able to travel. Many people are not privileged enough to do that. Those who do get the chance, it brings excitement in their lives and teaches them new things. No matter how a travelling experience may go, whether good or bad, it will definitely help you learn.

FAQ on Essay on Travel

Question 1: Why is it advantageous to travel?

Answer 1: Real experiences always have better value. When we travel to a city, in a different country, it allows us to learn about a new culture, new language, new lifestyle, and new peoples. Sometimes, it is the best teacher to understand the world.

Question 2: Why is travelling essential?

Answer 2: Travelling is an incredibly vital part of life. It is the best way to break your monotonous routine and experience life in different ways. Moreover, it is also a good remedy for stress, anxiety and depression.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Memories — My Favorite Memorable Experiences in Life

My Most Memorable Experiences in Life

• Categories: A Day to Remember Memories

About this sample

Words: 478 |

Published: Apr 8, 2022

Words: 478 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

• Smith, J. (2019). The Significance of Memorable Experiences in Shaping Personal Identity. Journal of Personal Growth, 15(2), 45-62.
• Johnson, L., & Davis, M. (2017). Emotional Impact and Memory Formation: Exploring the Role of Memorable Experiences. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 32(3), 201-215.
• Thompson, C. L., & Anderson, R. (2018). The Role of Emotion in Shaping Memorable Experiences. Emotion Review, 42(1), 189-204.
• Davis, A., & Roberts, M. (2020). Recalling Memorable Experiences: The Influence of Emotional Intensity and Valence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 28(4), 201-215.
• Gonzalez, L. S., & Wilson, B. (2016). Exploring the Subjective Experience of Memorable Events. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 52(2), 345-360.
• Johnson, S., & Miller, C. (2019). The Impact of First-Day Experiences on Emotional Well-being. Journal of Happiness and Well-being, 21(1), 78-92.
• Baker, S., & Turner, R. (2017). The Role of New Environment in Shaping Memorable Experiences. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45(4), 521-536.
• Smith, E., & Davis, M. A. (2018). First-Day Experiences and Social Interactions: The Influence on Emotional States. Journal of Social Psychology, 32(1), 89-104.
• Anderson, R., & Roberts, M. (2016). Memorable Experiences and Life Satisfaction : A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Positive Psychology, 42(2), 233-248.
• Gonzalez, L. S., & Johnson, S. (2020). The Impact of Work Experiences on Emotional States: A Comparative Study. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 28(2), 233-248.

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Essay on My Holiday Trip to Munnar

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Holiday Trip to Munnar in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Holiday Trip to Munnar

Introduction.

My holiday trip to Munnar was an unforgettable experience. Munnar, a beautiful hill station in Kerala, is known for its serene beauty and vast tea estates.

The Journey

Our journey started early morning. The drive to Munnar was scenic, with lush greenery everywhere. We saw beautiful waterfalls and spice gardens on our way.

We stayed in a cozy resort surrounded by mountains. The mornings were magical with the misty mountains and chirping birds.

Exploration

We visited the famous tea gardens and learned about tea processing. A boat ride in the Mattupetty Dam was another highlight.

Our trip to Munnar was refreshing and filled with wonderful memories. It is a must-visit place for nature lovers.

250 Words Essay on My Holiday Trip to Munnar

The prelude.

The anticipation of my holiday trip to Munnar began long before the journey itself. It was a welcome escape from the monotonous routine of college life. The prospect of exploring the verdant landscapes of this South Indian hill station, nestled in the Western Ghats, filled me with excitement.

The journey to Munnar was an adventure in itself. As our vehicle navigated the winding roads, the urban landscapes gradually gave way to lush green tea plantations. The air became cooler and fresher, hinting at the natural beauty that awaited us.

The Enthralling Beauty

Munnar, with its sprawling tea gardens, exotic wildlife, and mesmerizing waterfalls, was a sight to behold. A visit to the Eravikulam National Park offered us a chance to witness the endangered Nilgiri Tahr in its natural habitat. The sight of the majestic Athukad Waterfalls, cascading down the mountains, was a visual treat.

The Cultural Immersion

The trip was also an opportunity to immerse ourselves in the local culture. We savored traditional Kerala cuisine, with its unique blend of spices, and witnessed Kathakali, a classical dance form. The warm hospitality of the locals added to the charm of the experience.

The Munnar trip was more than just a holiday. It was a journey of self-discovery, a chance to connect with nature, and an opportunity to experience a different culture. It served as a reminder of the importance of stepping out of our comfort zones and exploring the world beyond our textbooks. As I returned to college, I carried with me not just souvenirs, but also memories and experiences that enriched my perspective.

500 Words Essay on My Holiday Trip to Munnar

My holiday trip to Munnar was a refreshing escape from the humdrum of city life. Nestled in the verdant landscapes of Kerala, Munnar is a tranquil hill station known for its sprawling tea plantations, exotic flora and fauna, and a serene atmosphere that provides a refreshing solace to the soul.

The journey to Munnar was a picturesque one. The winding roads, flanked by lush green tea plantations and misty hills, were a sight to behold. The cool breeze that kissed my face was a stark contrast to the sweltering heat of the city, and the aroma of the tea leaves filled my senses with an inexplicable calmness.

The Enchanting Munnar

Upon reaching Munnar, I was greeted by a sight that seemed straight out of a postcard. The undulating hills covered in emerald green tea leaves, the azure sky above, and the exotic wildlife added to the ethereal beauty of the place. The first day was spent exploring the local market, where I got a taste of the rich culture and traditions of the local people.

Exploring the Tea Plantations

The next day was dedicated to exploring the tea plantations. An early morning walk amidst the sprawling tea gardens, with the sun peeping from behind the hills, was an experience worth cherishing. I also visited a tea factory where I learned about the intricate process of tea making, from plucking the leaves to packaging the final product.

The Wildlife Expedition

Munnar is not just about tea plantations; it is also a haven for wildlife enthusiasts. I visited the Eravikulam National Park, home to the endangered Nilgiri Tahr, and was lucky to spot a few. The sight of these majestic creatures in their natural habitat was a sight to behold.

The Echo Point

No trip to Munnar is complete without a visit to the Echo Point. Standing on the edge of the cliff, shouting out my name, and hearing it echo back was a thrilling experience. The panoramic view of the surrounding hills and valleys from the point was simply breathtaking.

The Conclusion

As I bid adieu to Munnar, I carried with me memories that I will cherish forever. From the tranquil tea gardens to the exotic wildlife, every moment spent in Munnar was a refreshing break from the monotony of city life. This trip to Munnar was not just a holiday; it was an experience that rejuvenated my mind, body, and soul.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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