Traveling alone allows you to truly discover who you are as a person but also strips your social skills!

In the last two years, I was truly blessed with a many traveling opportunities. This was a great time for me to discover my interests without having much influence. I highly recommend this experience to everyone (post college) to not only broaden your horizon but have space and time for self realization. During my travel time, I saw diverse communities, the cultures, food and lifestyles in the United States and abroad. The first and most important thing I realized is how blessed I was growing up and more now as an adult.

The benefits of traveling alone is thinking independently, where you go, what you eat, your safety. your mind is alert at all times and obviously assessing situations. What I did not realize is traveling alone strips you of basic social skills like sharing!

considering how much time you spend alone, sharing your space and time even with the people you truly love becomes an inconvenience. Personally, I find it particularly difficult to share my space and I grew up sharing a room, bathroom etc. with my sibling and even in college I had a roommate through my undergraduate career.

My thoughts got louder (it was scary many times), because I had never taken the time to listen to them before due to the outside "noise". what did they tell me? how did I react to that?

I prayed with more concentration, because everything was set based on my pace. I developed a stronger sense of why I choose to practice my faith and not because my family.

I surely managed to shed a huge part of "cultural conditioning" and communicated better. Sometimes it sounded aggressive because I said exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it. (many times it is frowned upon, at least in my culture).

Another interesting thing is people forget about you! This sounds crazy but its true; you are not at any particular place long enough to build strong relationships therefore a guest even in your own home.

Traveling has a negative impact on your career! nobody knows you but everyone knows of you. your networking skills are outstanding but you have a poor network because you haven't worked anywhere long enough to be known.

Moral of the story: take time to travel to discover yourself. who are you? what do you want to see in your lifetime? after all we only get one chance.