I have a large and closely knit family. But each and every one of us has travelled this last month. Some have travelled for work, some for play and some to reconnect with old friends. But we have all experienced a change in our usual routine, our place, and even our food. This week, we all will have returned home for the season.

Travel is an exercise in contrasts. It is about how you feel just before you leave home, and how you feel just before you return. In those watershed moments, you learn things.

You learn that for better or worse, you were in a routine. When you leave, you cannot help but critically appraise that usual routine. And you should critically appraise your usual routine.

You learn how you feel about being with your spouse, and that is precisely because he is elsewhere. You may make new resolutions about what good things you will do when you get back. But beware, inertia is powerful, and there are reasons why you always did things the way you did. You must figure them out if you want your life and your relationship to move forward.

You will learn how people change over time. My daughter marveled at the changes she saw in her 18 month old daughter after a ten day adventure. I marveled at the changes I saw in her.

At reunion I visited with friends of 35 years duration. They are still themselves, but more so. I am glad I chose my close friends wisely so long ago. I still adore my sophomore roommate. Time loops back in a circle and we felt and acted like roomies for the span of one evening, then we went back to our alternate realities.

Some of us like to stay curled up in our Hobbit holes smoking our figurative pipes and drinking our tea. But adventures knock on the door, annoying us at first then compelling us. As the Hobbit's tale teaches us, the journey is the only way to learn who we are and where we are at home.

I am in black and with me is Kyra Bobinet, MD, MPH of drkyrabobinet.com

Although travel is often arduous, it has the capability to be really invigorating. Travel is meant to refresh both the body and the spirit.

I travel seldom. Often, when I do, it is for a specific reason such as a conference. Nonetheless, it gives me perspective on the destination and on home. I also learn things about myself. Here is a sampling of my insights from a recent trip to Stanford Medx.

I worry before a trip and invariably come to find that my worries were largely unfounded.
Every time I travel, especially the day I’m supposed to depart, I'm reluctant to leave home and have strong feelings of missing home. However, by the time I change planes, I am very glad I went and I get excited for the destination. Toward the end of the trip, I'm anxious to depart, and love arriving at home.
I romanticize my destinations yet ultimately find that they, like all places, have advantages and disadvantages.
I sleep more when I am not at home since I do not engage in the endless list of things to do at home.
I feel better when I sleep more as many people have told me I would.
I am becoming increasingly selective about what I eat. I am therefore becoming more careful about bringing food, especially snack foods, with me.
I am more determined than before about finding new ways to keep up on my workout while I travel.
I drink more and hydrate better when I am away and I feel better because of it.
I am still reserved at the beginning of a big interactive conference. I then realize partway through the conference that there is no reason not to approach anybody, including the main speaker, that I find interesting. When I do approach people with reasonable points or questions, they are uniformly receptive and share generously.
I never bring enough business cards. And in a related vein, my business cards are boring. I need some new ones.
I sometimes get the “ I am not worthy“ feeing when I meet people of towering brilliance and accomplishment. It does not take me too long to realize that this is a waste of energy. However, it still happens. Thankfully, this feeling does not paralyze me, and it makes me want to do more. These negative feelings are eclipsed by my gratefulness at getting to meet such people.
I am afraid of “ losing” the cool people I meet on my trips, so I have become more thorough about getting their complete contact information, often including pictures. The funny thing is, everyone else seems to be doing the same thing.
I used to disdain Twitter, but now I get it. I don’t know if this was one of the original intended uses, but I quickly learned to do as others were doing and tweet out key points from the lectures, including helpful hashtags and relevant twitter handles. The twitter stream from the sometimes concurrent presentations in one conference could thus be shared by all who were interested, regardless of what presentation they attended or, regardless of whether they were present at the conference at all. I was enthralled by the idea that we were creating a crowdsourced collective impression of the conference available live in the twitter sphere.
When I travel to places where I have lived before, I feel a pleasant sense of continuity from past to the present. I also get a sense of longevity, as though life is reasonably long, and that you are free to do many different things over the decades.

Traveling inspires me to do more and be more. It makes me appreciate both home and the destination better. If I go back in time by going back to a place I’ve lived before, I gain understanding and compassion for my younger self.

Traveling can be expensive and challenging to arrange. However, I believe that it is worth it.

Here are some older posts I wrote about travel:

T ravel Wellness

Travel Food

The Structure of Travel