When Travel Changed My Life

Upon my traveling time, I realized there are some changes happened inside me whether it’s positive or negative, mostly positive of course, back again to perceptions.

Okay, so here are the five changes:

Hedonist to Minimalist

Likely all normal girls who care about their appearances, I was just one of them who loved to go shopping.

I could spend much money just to buy new outfits, wear it to campus, or malls while hanging out with friends.

I do love traveling at that time and bring different kind of clothes because I normally go only for few days.

During this year, when I started to travel for longer time within a month, even three months, I decided to bring just few light comfortable clothes with me.

Since then, I never do shopping anymore because I realized all the clothes I bought were useless.

I’m more simple now, minimalist, and of course, saved a lot of money. Even my friend asked me why I always wear the same shirts in some of my photos, haha.

No hurry, be flexible

I was such an annoying traveler I guess back at that time.

I always stick to my plan, traveling in rush because I wanted to visit as many place/object as possible within a short travel period.

I could still remember when I scolded my friend because we planned to go hiking on 4 p.m., turns out he showed up at 9 p.m. without any notification.

Well, I knew it’s his fault and I had rights to be angry, but after I rewind my memory back, I felt stupid and guilty that I shouldn’t scold him like that.

Probably he had important things to do.

So, lessons learned. Don’t expect/depend to much from other people.

In addition, I planned longer travel period, so I can be more relax, flexible, and considerate when meeting other travelmates.

Read also: Dramatic Journey to The East

Watch out, It’s addictive!

Is it happened to everyone or only me? Since I started to travel, I’m so addicted and no way for me to stop traveling.

I really want to see the world out there, I’m totally freaking fall into this traveling zone.

Traveling always been a good experience, somehow I felt that I’m in my own comfort zone. What I think is always traveling and traveling.

My parents are so worried about me because I don’t want to pursue any career, I don’t want to be bounded in marriage, I don’t want to have house, or car, which are not normal in Asian countries.

All I want is only traveling and see different view, different culture. So,……

Big NO to Racism

To be honest, I admit I was a racist, so sorry to say this. It all started since I was a child where the environment I lived was full of bullying, intimidating, insulting, and harassment to Chinese people, minority in Indonesia.

I grew up in a mindset that all these indigenous Indonesian people are all bad guys, sorry again.

We were isolated in our own private school, mostly all my friends are Chinese and I rarely had Indonesian friend. Maybe some.

I wasn’t such a fanatic hater but I tried to avoid and didn’t trust any of them.

When I went to university, I started to hang out with Indonesian, and when I traveled, I had more local friends to travel with.

I met so many nice humble local people. I love how they treat me as a family.

This gap inside me and toward these people was slowly vanishing. I respect them fully from my heart.

There are bad people and good people but we can’t judge them in overall just because one guy mistakes.

I LOVE INDONESIA !

Until the age of 18, I never like my own country, Indonesia at all. My nationalism was so poor until I really wanted to move to another country.

As I mentioned before, having such a bad environment during childhood, injustice to the poor and minority, corruption, politic riots, everything, I never see any good things on my own country.

It all changed when I travel. I’m so in love with the nature we have in Indonesia.

I met so many lovely charming local people. I saw many positive things in my life.

Even though there are still many aspects to be fixed by the government, now I can loudly say, I’m proud to be Indonesian!

 

Comments

10 responses to “When Travel Changed My Life”

  1. Joshua Gk Avatar

    Menurut gw sih kalok travelling harus tetap tepat waktu ya.
    Tapi parah banget tuh temen lu telatnya ga main-main, pake ga ngabarin lagi. Hahaha

  2. Eve Ng Avatar

    great post~~
    u so rajin in update ur blog.

  3. Gondar Avatar

    a true traveler's list
    is it not the essence of freedom !?

    happy travels
    the old guy @ Rammang Rammang 😉

  4. Velysia Zhang Avatar

    Iy. Emang bete banget gw waktu itu haha.

    Thanks Ichlas and ce eve.

    Hey, old guy from rammang2. It's been a long time. Where are you? I hope you're having fun traveling the world 🙂

  5. Velysia Zhang Avatar

    This comment has been removed by the author.

  6. DebbZie Leksono Avatar

    Great post!
    I can relate myself to some points there. Traveling is indeed addictive and I can't see myself stop traveling anytime soon :p
    Happy travels!

  7. Velysia Zhang Avatar

    Travel around Indonesia and you'll be nasionalist 🙂

  8. Cuni Candrika Avatar

    Benet bgt poin no 3. Ga pengen kerja, nikah, punya mobil/rumah, pengennya travelling doang hahahaha.

  9. Velysia Zhang Avatar

    Keep walking, keep traveling 🙂

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