Don’t underestimate the power of quiet and solitude.
Photo: -Delphine - / Feature photo: Let Ideas Compete
Pondering your next travel destination usually incites visions of bustling new cities, taking in as much gorgeous country landscape as possible, and becoming wrapped up in a culture other than your own.
But as writer Jill K. Robinson recently discussed over at Vagabonding, there is an often-overlooked aspect to traveling that really is necessary to staying sane: quiet time.
At some point in the day, especially after a few days of uninterrupted madcap adventures, it’s time to settle down and process. For Robinson, she notes:
Those quiet hours come in the morning, before the workday begins and visitors flood popular areas of town. Roaming the empty streets, I stumble upon people sweeping, watering flowers or just sitting with a hot beverage and watching the day unfold.
I too prefer mornings before the world wakes up, wherever in the world I am at the moment. Sometimes it feels as if even nature is quiet and resting, and the air hangs heavy with sleep. You can almost taste the food, conversation, and movement from the day before, and feel the hazy rise of the day to come.
You don’t have anywhere to be, and you get to really feel your surroundings in your bones.
Time to Rejuvenate
But what does quiet time give us beyond a more felt sense of place? It rejuvenates the body and the soul – no matter how young and able you are, we all need time off, including from fun. I know, it’s shocking, but this idea is similar to what I said the other day about happiness: in order to truly know what happiness is, we must feel sadness. To truly feel alive, we must have rest.
And finding some quiet time alone, even when we are traveling as a part of a group, can teach you a lot about yourself, things you might miss while caught up in the fanfare of moving to the tune of others. As Cameron Karsten wrote in 10 Things To Learn About Yourself When Traveling Alone:
To travel alone is to find the answers you’ve been seeking and discover the questions to all your unfounded thoughts. It is your world. It is your adventure.
Even if that’s only 30 minutes alone in the morning or late in the evening, it can make all the difference in the world – and all the difference in your travel experience.
What do you do for quiet time during your travels? Share your thoughts below.
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8 Comments... join the discussion!
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I 100% agree with this. I think it is so important to have down time when traveling. You can get caught up in all you are seeing and where you are going next that you often forget to reflect on WHAT you are seeing and how that makes you feel.
Part of traveling is feeling the adventures… not just seeing them.
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Great post!
On longer travels I always try to mix up the big city life with smaller relaxed towns just to get the “quiet time” that you speak off. Staying in multishare hostelrooms is my favorite way of travelling, but it certainly takes it toll on your mind and body. Therefor it’s good to get a night or two at a B&B far, far away from the roaring sound of the city!
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Time to mull over the events, the parts of your life that have lead you to travel, or just meditating on the beach. Awesome.
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So true!
Allowing ourselves downtime to reflect and relish the experience of travelling is vital. Also, not feeling guilty that we aren’t rushing from one activity or ‘must see’ to another and that sometimes doing nothing for a whole day is a good thing!
Waking up early, but keeping my eyes closed and listening to the sounds of a place as itself wakes up..
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I’ve noticed that if i don’t make allowance for quiet time i will invariably fall sick! Quiet time is an essential aspect of travel especially in really bustling places like India, Thailand, Japan. My favorite downtime activities – meditation, yoga & massage. Great article Christine.
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Good one! i love watching the world go by and just taking in the day and appreciate the life thats happening around me. People can get so caught up in getting here and there at this time that we can forget why we wanted to travel in the first place.
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it’s really very important to have a quiet time during travel. it is the time when you are going to internalize things happened, things happening and things that will happen in your life. Quiet time will let you enlighten your thoughts from all the angst that you’ve experience..
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