Transformative travel: what is it?

Byline by Mariellen Ward, BreatheDreamGo.com

The truth is, there are probably as many types of travel as there are travelers. There are those travelers who like to lie on a warm beach with a cool drink; others who live for bracing adventures; and still others who like to learn as they travel by visiting museums, taking courses or volunteering.  They are all legitimate forms of travel.

But the kind of travel that gets my blood racing is what I call transformative travel - travel that changes you. It could be the first trip you took, the one that made you realize there is a big world beyond your home town; or the six months you spent living in a developing nation and volunteering; or the journey of self discovery you took after a terrible loss.

It’s the kind of travel that gets under your skin - the kind where you immerse yourself in the local culture. You step outside the known and the familiar. You allow yourself to fall down the rabbit hole.

But it’s not just the trip; it’s the attitude. It’s an attitude of being open to new people, new ideas, new cultures; a willingness to let go of assumptions, judgments and pre-conceived ideas.  Most of all, it’s being ready – and even more then ready, eager – to allow yourself to feel your experiences and let them change you.

My story: Going to India re-started my life

Most people who know me know that I initially went to India for six months for essentially two reasons. One reason was a carrot and one was a stick. The carrot was that I had always wanted to go to India, and I was a long-time yoga student. Going to India for me was the fulfillment of a dream -- and I had recently started taking my dreams, and manifesting them, seriously for the first time in my life.

The stick was that I was trying to recover from a depression brought on by a series of devastating losses. In a span of a few years I lost both of my parents and our family property, and my fiancé left me. My mother's death was particularly difficult as it was sudden, and I was not prepared to lose her -- and my grief was compounded by trauma. My sister and I found her body when we went to make her lunch. We thought she had a bad chest cold, but she died in the night of heart failure.

After years of depression following these losses, I felt I had to do something. I was taking yoga, and it was really helping me. So I fulfilled one dream and became a yoga teacher; and then during yoga teacher training, decided to fulfill another and finally go to India. I spent a year planning and saving and flew to Delhi on December 5, 2005 with a return ticket dated June 2, 2006. The rest, as they say, is history. I fell in love with India, met Ajay, found my spiritual home at Aurovalley Ashram, starting writing a blog on Travelblog.org.

Essentially, going to India re-started my life  -- and much more. I feel I have a centre within me and a purpose I didn't have before; I have a new understanding of the world and of life; I found my vocation (writing), my soul's home (India), a family in Delhi, and a completely new perspective: I am now aware of myself as a white, middle-class Canadian woman in a world that is dominated by non-white, non-middle-class people.

So to say that travel changed me is an understatement!

Travel That Changes You

My blog, BreatheDreamGo.com, has always been about transformative travel, though I have labeled it an India travel and yoga blog to give it a focus. But now I am making that underlying value statement explicit with the launch of the Travel That Changes You e-newsletter. I will be featuring inspiring stories of real change by real travelers – and transformative travel tips by pros like Evelyn “Journeywoman” Hannon. Please sign up – the webform is on my blog – and contribute a story.

Mariellen Ward is a Toronto-based freelance writer with a BA in Journalism, a certificate in yoga teacher training and a passion for transformative travel. She has traveled for more than a year altogether in India, writes for magazines, newspapers and many online travel sites, and publishes a travel blog, Breathedreamgo.com. Mariellen leads custom group tours to some of her favorite places in India, and she recently published her first book, Song of India: Tales of Travel and Transformation, which is available for purchase on Breathedreamgo.com