travelher stories
Thank you for visiting! Here you will find a collection of travel stories from women around the world. Each one is as unique and varied as the next. Enjoy!
 I had no energy to find a place to eat, so I ended up sitting in the hotel restaurant. As I waited for my food, I felt the urge to go back home.
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 When we visited the home for under 5 year olds my heartstrings were pulled at. Now that I have my own child, it breaks my heart to meet children who are not able to be with their families. I just wanted to pick them all up and give them big hugs.  If only they knew, sometimes travelling is not always a guaranteed good time. Sometimes it's breaking down in a vehicular, financial and mental fashion...  It felt surreal being at the same house that the von Trapp family once was. I was transported back in time. I could imagine them walking the exact same steps or looking at the same views.  In a pocket of the country strange and new, distant and odd to me, I felt like I belonged. We were not alone in the west, nor in this country, but rather a part of it.  She found the perfect place in an East London house share, and when she got to the room, she immediately felt at home. Maybe it was the map on the wall? Or was it the positive quotes and notes around the room? Something said this was the right place to be.  After a bit of soul-searching, we realised that part of the reason we felt so nervous was that the most common context in which we had seen Arabic script on a black banner or flag was in news coverage of ISIS.  I had no agenda. I was just going back to my roots, to what felt good. To my happy place. To just be.  The next few hours were spent filing through a series of lines sleep-deprived, as the airport kept filling up with people and news crews, with little to no one leaving.  As I made my way onto the platform, I remember thinking to myself - these people can’t ALL be getting on the same train, can they? They won’t fit, surely? Oh, how wrong I was!  Unfortunately, life had plans for me that did not involve taking a single footstep in my hiking boots.  I never questioned whether it was meant to be - I knew instantly I’d keep the baby, but I felt so alone and scared.  To me, Japan is a country of convenience, politeness, discipline and gorgeous landscapes. It’s the country where napping on the train during the commute is perfectly normal. It’s home to the most polite and helpful people I have ever encountered.  The urban legend claims that for higher houses you need to make a more significant offering. No, it’s not two fetuses. It’s also not a grown llama. Brace yourselves; it’s a human.  Over the next couple of days, it didn’t get any easier, but I learned to love the challenge and accomplishment. Each night coming to camp I felt proud of myself for making it, and that sense of accomplishment kept me going.  We have a proverb in Romania that says: “Even drunk people have their own God.”  You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. - Eleanor Roosevelt  Living in a place that was away from the hustle and bustle of the usual tourist spots gave me a greater insight into the Ecuadorian way of life.  Knowing that you will never have another day like this, in this company, at this place—it makes it all that much more intense and valuable.  They made me feel at home, and I always felt like I was able to give my love to them in return. Love is not something that you keep to yourself. It is something that you share with others.  The value of a trip should be measured by the experiences you've made and the lessons you've learned, not by the amount of money you spent.  ...the moment I landed in Buenos Aires, I realised that I had been somewhat cocky about my abilities. |
