Travel is best when shared.

In the quest to give students the tools to secure a successful career, I believe our public schools forget about teaching them what happens once they achieve it.

My friend Maria, a political lobbyist, said it best: “I see students in school today who say that they want to make money. But I ask them: what are you going to do once you have that money?”

Many people are left stranded at a financially successful point in their lives, never having thought about what comes after the stable, robust paycheck.

Similarly, many experienced globetrotters don’t think thoroughly about what comes after their long-awaited journey. We spend a lot of time and money planning our trips, which can lead us to believe that the trip is the end in itself.

In reality, coming home is only the beginning. You’ve had a wonderful trip and learned so much, but what are you going to do with what you’ve learned?

Bigger Context

One of the most fulfilling ways to put your traveling experience into the context of a bigger, more meaningful picture is to share it with others.

Most of us come home with great tools for sharing our experience: gifts, stories, hundreds of photos.

The real connections are made from the thoughtful reflections on your experience. Recently one of my friends gave a slideshow presentation about her internship in Senegal to forty of her friends and family at home.

At the end, she summarized by stating several things she had learned: that poverty is not always obvious. That Africa is not hopeless. That you never know what people have been through. That we should share what we have.

These are small but profound lessons. It’s more than ego to tell our stories to others – it’s a responsibility. Education and travel are privileges not enjoyed by everyone. It presents us with an obligation to not let our knowledge rest inside us to wither and fade away.

Ideas for Sharing

Your trip may not have been long or exotic. But you inevitably grew from being in a new culture and place, and what you took is what you also have the power to give.

• Put together a thoughtful collection of your fifty best photos from your trip, and share those photos’ stories to any willing family or friends.
• Keep a trip blog, but use it to reflect on larger issues and themes as well as your everyday experiences.
• Reach a wider audience by writing articles and stories.
• Talk to high school teachers and youth group leaders, who are often thrilled to host young guest speakers who have an interesting story or lesson to share.

In Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency even has a Youth Speakers Program – you tell them that you are interested in speaking about your international experience, and they provide you with the resources and booking services.

Passing Knowledge

Ultimately the world is about something bigger than us.

It’s about constantly and actively seeking to make our communities, countries, and world a better place – righting injustices, caring for self, others, and the environment, and actively participating and cooperating in community life.

Traveling is a profound and powerful experience. But without passing on our knowledge, without sharing our new insights with those who cross our paths, it becomes emptier and its full meaning is lost.

We cannot underestimate the power of sharing these things that we learn.

So don’t just go back to your old life or keep your trip to yourself when you come home – use what you’ve learned to its full extent. Share what your travels have taught you, and you are making the world a better place.

How do you share your travels? Share your ideas in the comments!

Resist the urge.

When I came home after my first significant travels, my experience matched that worn-out definition that most call “re-entry culture shock.”

I felt disappointed at how uninterested my friends and family seemed towards my trip. I felt betrayed at how quickly my life-altering experience seemed to slip away.

Years later on another trip, I stepped off the plane in West Africa, a more hardened traveler.

Not this time, I thought confidently, as Africa instantly swallowed me up in its colour and life so indescribably different from that of the West. I would know how to keep myself together this time; to deal with the conflicted feelings of “re-entry” when the time came.

After four months in Benin and Ghana, hitting Cairo and Zürich on my way home weaned me away from the African reality back towards full Western industrial comforts. By the time I arrived in Montreal, not even the fluorescent supermarkets and sparkling bathrooms seemed unexpected.

It turned out that I had matured since that first trip back in the day – I felt a bit of disappointment, but mostly it just felt great to be home after a great trip.

I had learned much and was more motivated to change the world than ever.

The Urge To Spend

At home I had eagerly tossed my traveling clothes in the donation bag and set out to buy a few staple items like a sweater and jeans.

I didn’t feel the need for more – after all, I had always been the “thrift-store queen” among friends, making do with about a third of the wardrobe burdened on others.

What’s more, Africa had taught me a lot about needs. I felt happy to ditch my well-worn threads, and committed myself to becoming even more scrupulous about making the distinction between “necessary” and “unnecessary” clothing items.

What happened next changed the very understanding of myself.

I became excited about fashion; even more than my early high school years, which was the last time I felt aimlessly “shopping” was a viable past-time. After the jeans and sweater I realized I didn’t own dress pants, and that had to be remedied. I threw in some new summer t-shirts as well.

A friend opened a designer consignment store, and I quickly dropped $250 in a little over a week. Then it was a new $100 bikini, a belt, a summer dress, a designer jacket, all of it purchased new at, horror of horrors, the mall.

I was buying something almost every day. And the line between what I “needed” and didn’t was getting hazier.

The Trend Continues

Photo by fafoutis

What was worse than the gratuitous purchasing was the attitude I seemed to have adopted towards it: after a couple hours of working on a paper for school, at break time I’d excitedly log on to shoe website and browse for half an hour.

I would casually add things to my cart with little or no intention of buying them; just for the sake of imagining having those clogs or these sandals.

While shopping centers had saddened me immediately after my trip (I had vowed to never let myself slip into that consumer-crazed mindset), two weeks later, I barely resisted the urge to stop by the mall on my way home from the library.

I felt a lack of control over my behaviour and unease at how I didn’t recognize this person.

“Don’t worry about it,” my mother would say, “you’ve spent so many years shopping at Value Village, I think buying some new things evens it out, don’t you?”

Getting Rid Of Stuff

Coming home I knew it would not be possible to live with African simplicity in western society. I had not, however, expected to fall prey to the common western problem of wanting things just because they were there, or more importantly, buying things just because I could.

Having momentarily forgotten the swollen abundance of available products, and the general “if you’ve got the money, you deserve to buy it” western attitude, I was suddenly overcome by the distorted value our society places on having stuff.

For me “that stuff” just happened to be clothing. Friends and family congratulated me repeatedly on getting good deals or good purchases, but inside it all felt wrong.

Moreover, in Africa I had seen it’s possible to live with less than we could possibly imagine.

How could I walk into the store and buy a $130 dress, when that same amount of money would pay for six kids to go to school for a year in Benin? How could justify this, after seeing how my fellow human beings were living, in squalor or filth, and poverty?

How could I spend hours sifting through shoes online when I could use my time and brains to change things, to help those with less, to learn more about what forces had given me so much and they had so little?

Enough Is Enough

One night at dinner it almost became too much for me. I suddenly stopped short of putting a luscious spoonful of rosemary lentil soup with feta cheese in my red wine-stained mouth.

What were my friends in Benin eating for dinner tonight?

I have since learned that this is a struggle that many other travelers returning from developing countries have experienced. Once we know with how little it takes to live, how can we apply these lessons to our lives at home?

We must learn to consume in a way that does not perpetuate economic inequity, while acknowledging the fact that we live in the West and therefore must live within a reasonable western standard.

The challenge for all of us is to find a space where we can balance these two objectives. Where we can take realistic action towards change and let go of any unproductive guilt for having what we have.

The outcome of my somewhat unorthodox “re-entry shock” is sure: it caused me to think.

I re-evaluated my level of self-awareness and became committed to testing out ways to find that balance for myself. This is the real magic of travel: that it finds ways to keep teaching you long after you have come home.

It ensures that you’ll continue to question your ways and the ways of the world, and you’ll try to come to terms with your place in it, even if you never set foot on foreign soil again.

What do you think of the consumerist urge? Share your thoughts in the comments!